war with yourself

photo by Sonny Sixteen

to be hungry
is to be at war with yourself,
to be at war with the very ground you walk on…
but what if the ground you walk on
isn’t even earth at all, but some phony tile
or some cheap mass-produced carpet?
how do you go to battle with something fake?
some synthetic no-name shit,
some material whose maker doesn’t have a face…
there’s nothing authentic about this fucking place
you can’t strangle something that doesn’t breathe
you can’t slay something that doesn’t have a pulse
and so here I am, yearning for nothing, a concept
that doesn’t exist, crying for some form of love
that doesn’t even have a space, in this culture,
in this constant commodification race…
where even the good folks act like vultures
swarming in circles, waiting for a whole lot
more than your other shoe to drop…
it’s the feeling when you shout something sincere
and no one hears you — but then you show
the slightest fear, and that’s when the helpers
come out of the cracks and try to own you…
now, listen, I won’t pretend to know you — 
this life is about striving to know yourself instead,
because no one here can feed that hunger,
the desire you have for something true and honest…
you have to make your own food on this silly planet,
so that you yourself don’t get fed to the dying herd

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Garbage Notes:

It doesn’t take much living to discover that desire is at the root of most forms of pain.

When we want something and we can’t get it. Or when we yearn for something true, but all we’re met with is the artificial, the processed, the doctored.

This poem is about the internal conflict of existing in a world where there’s so much pressure to be like everyone else.

So much pushing you in the direction of the superficial, the cheap, and the mass-produced.

The war with yourself is really a battle for authenticity. A crying out for something you don’t have to pretend to enjoy.

And by the end of this poem, I conclude that this hunger is only satisfied by making something of your very own.

The act of creation is what saves you from the constant threat of destruction.

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Franco Amati 2026

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