I stand at the edge
Of the ice-cream ledge,
Looking down, staring at the marshmallow ground
The chocolate bits, the peanut butter chunks,
The salted-caramel goodness spreading throughout
Like a vein beneath the skin.
A chocolate core wrapped in salted caramel,
A wonder to the tongue.
Do I really want to do this to myself?
The pain inside says yes,
Drown my pain in the delicious calories,
The wonderful tastiness that is this mountain of ice cream,
That will throw me into a binge
Of sweet, then salt, then sweet, then salt,
The never-ending cycle.
Just a slower way of committing suicide,
Of burying the pain inside,
Of throwing out the good that is in me,
To make room for the “good” that is the food.
Like Esau, selling my birthright
For a mess of porridge.
(Wonder what that was, really,
Was it like Cream of Rice, Cream of Wheat, oatmeal?
Did it have cream and sugar and raisins?
Was it buttery like grits?
Or fried, scattered, smothered, and covered
With onions and cheese like hash browns at a WaffleHouse?)
Like Esau, selling my birthright
For something I think I urgently need,
Urgently want,
Right now.
The ice cream beckons.
“Come closer, my little pretty,
I’ll give you what you need!
You won’t feel a thing,
I promise…
And think, it will taste so good going down!
So exciting, each spoonful,
Slurped up, slurped down,
Licking the spoon,
The last few scrapes around the edge of the carton.”
“You know you’ll feel better if you do it,
You do know that, right?
Nobody else cares,
But I do, all this lovely stuff just for you.”
I waver at the edge,
Right before the jump,
I waver
Something inside--
A little voice--
Is trying to say something
But I can’t hear it
for the marshmallows coming out of my ears…
Wait a minute, it sounded something like:
“Help! Get me away from here!
“Talk to someone quickly,
Pick up the phone, pick up the phone quick!
You cannot survive this yet again
Another attack on your spirit.
“It isn’t the food you’re craving.
It’s the God-shaped hole in your heart.*
It’s the hole that tells you that you need God.
It’s the hole that tells you that you need love.”
It’s the hole that tells me it must be filled…
Filled now…
With something…
Anything…
Like the construction crew using cold patch
Because they can’t properly fill the craterous pothole
In the cold weather… but the cold patch cracks
And the sinkhole returns…
It takes the mountain of food to bury the pain,
I cannot lie to myself--
It is the pain that cries out for the mountain of food.
It is the fear of the pain that allows me to eat it.
The little voice inside cries,
“Why can’t we just talk instead?
Let’s walk away
From this dangerous ledge,
Let’s walk away
From the temptation to dive in,
And let’s talk somewhere, quietly, prayerfully,
Let’s talk somewhere, earnestly, lovingly.
“Give yourself some grace.
You cannot be perfect,
You cannot always do the right thing,
You cannot make others change their ways--
And it’s not your fault they choose to go the way they do.
“You would not think about other people
The angry, hateful, disappointed way you do about yourself.
Don’t make yourself out to be all bad,
Don’t make others out to be all good…
Neither is true.
“Think about what is true,
What is noble,
What is right,
What is pure,
What is lovely,
What is admirable…**
See those things in yourself!
As God does!”
I sigh,
Tears appear,
Blinking at the edge of my lashes.
I try
One more time,
I walk away from the ice cream freezer,
Walk away from the ice cream ledge.
I talked myself off the ice cream ledge.
*Blaise Pasquale
**Philippians 4:8