30 in 30 2016: #2 He Just Shows Up Uninvited to Dinner

He Just Shows Up Uninvited to Dinner

This could have been cooked better,

your taste-buds are probably lying to me.

They can’t taste through

your day’s worth of strong coffee,

and commute of rush hour exhaust.

You made this too messy,

I’ll get it all over myself.

Makes me self-conscious of that

flavor saver I got hugging my face.

Food mustaches on top of real mustaches

are embarrassing for all the mustaches involved.

My uninvited dinner guest is already

second guessing the way his food will digest.

It’ll keep him up half the night

like an angry brick in his gut,

holding him down with an uncomfortable weight.

He whispers inside my head as

I chew my food trying to ignore him.

I’m always hoping his criticisms

don’t derail and careen away

from anything constructive.

That was way too many calories and you’ll get fat,

you shouldn’t have added any salt you’ll have a heart attack,

you over seasoned it from the get go it tastes like you’re trying to hide something,

you let it cook too long and it’s burn,

you didn’t let it cook long enough and you’ll get sick.

He’s quiet enough inside my head

I can drown him out with conversation,

or good TV, or worrying about the next morning

that’s coming too soon.

He’ll always show up when

my day was too long

to give the end of it

the attention it deserves.

If I find some free moments

to spend too much time

thinking about dinner,

planning out all the steps in my head,

preparing for the problems I had last time,

and keep focused on watching it cook.

Those nights the smug bastard has nothing to say,

as his words melt in my frontal lobe

after my parietal lobe body slams it with delicious.