Get Rid of Bile Slowly

There is an unseen, unfelt, unacknowledged gap
In self, meaning, experience
Produced when food is withheld
From an organism by taking away the insides that are already there.

The organism and its gap remain unquenched of good fruit.
It has to negotiate, navigate, exist with bad
Bile to fill itself
Instead. The bad bile churns out chaos unnoticed.

The chaos becomes self, meaning, experience—
Love, life, truth—rejecting all that
Threatens it
With more chaos. More bad bile.

But once seen—over a lifetime, generation, species—
Organisms can methodically and relentlessly
Make themselves sick
To quit the bad bile leaving fresh gaps to fill as we choose.

*

You’re allowed the good fruit. Make space for it slowly.
You can hold on to truth. Let yourself see it slowly.
You can be yourself, loved and full. But first, get rid of the bad bile
Slowly.

(A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f))