The Pastry Display at Northstar Café

Happy comfort beckons from
behind smudged glass; the folded paper sign reading
“Last Night’s Cookies. $1.00.”
I regard their perfect head-sized shape, irrepressibly
hungry for the warmth in my
center that can only come from the
devouring of half a dozen.
I contemplate my emptiness—the echoing void that calls for
carbohydrates because nothing
else satisfies—and I feel my waist band reminding me that
my pants, if nothing else,
are full.
Mouth watering, I consider home-made
scones as big as bricks and
muffins surely more effective than the
stupid SAM-e I suck down every morning in an
attempt to forget my
troubles and common get happy.
Surely…
I take a deep breath, trying not
to think of all the happy cookie-eating people in the
world, trying not to think of the empty growling in the pit of my
psyche, trying not to think of just how deep that
sadness goes,
and I look away
and
order
a salad
instead.