Fight over food

Before you eat, you give thanks this is what you were taught at ten
you do not give complaints for the hands that cooked, the eyes that
measured because spoons and cups are not the ultimate methods used
for fitting enough dough on your bones.

Before food, you stop to think about the origin, this is a story
of a name, where it came from- where it is going
it is not a story about the actual meal itself which can be
cooked with a thousand name but tastes all the same

I do not understand this need for validation: make sure you
know what you are eating and where it is coming from because
authenticity is the real deal, well, maybe one
should just savor food, like every other thing-

but even a simple meal here is a fight, you mark your territory by rice
by pieces of round falafel, originating from the bare chickpeas
you fight about the legitimacy of you tahini paste, like you
fight for your blood, the same way you fight for a space

to bury your bones. This is a fight to prove that history
sides with the one who has enough resources to carry the chickpeas
ground them like people under fire, then pour over them tahini
call them your own.

 What I eat does not fight this body, it fights to prove
both its name and this body- can stay.