After the Phone Call I Starve by Daniel Boyko (17, New Jersey)*

My limbs feel cold, soggy, like half-
raw oats. Grumbles should claw
 
from my stomach, tugging at shirt
and skin, but there’s only silence.
 
Her body bled into the ground,
I’m told, crumbling like run-over

---

turtle shells. They tell me to fill
the gaps in my ribs with sustenance
 
but I know that won’t bulge
my shriveled, braided insides.
 
Her skin faded into transparency,
paling until nothing was there. Piles
 
of food now only look like stripped
guts, pulled bones from lifeless bodies.
 
The metal came from nowhere,
breaking her hip before she could sigh.
 
Should it have been me, I don’t know,
but I tell myself so anyway. I want
 
to scream until I don’t feel
cold, soggy. I want to scream
 
until I think I’m hungry.