"Cartography of Hunger" by Âmî Jey

Carve me a mouth where no tongue dares venture—

pale lines trembling in the marrow of dusk,

call it desire: this map of smudged ink,

border quivering, afraid to claim its own bounds.

In the echo chamber of my ribs, vowels unfurl—

syllables disintegrate into threads of ash,

each consonant blistering nerve into highway,

the hum of absence riding on fractured syllables.

Do you see it?

The jagged hieroglyph of yearning,

syntax crumbling beneath the weight of seed—

a map drawn not with ink, but with fire,

as the very bones of language burn through their own skin.

Every pulse speaks in questions,

each one trembling like a hand that cannot grasp:

What shape does an apology take when swallowed whole?

What name for the bone-shard lodged

in the throat of forgiveness?

I wake to the laughter of unfinished sentences,

echoes writhing like tongues severed mid-word,

unsaid, undone, impossible to translate.

Here, a wound becomes a door—

here, absence kneels before its own shadow,

an altar of broken teeth,

molars begging to speak.

Say the hunger was holy.

Say the hunger was nothing.

Say the hunger was both—

a prayer unanswered but still rising from bones.

A body unwinding, a sentence undone,

hunger so sharp it forgets its name.

Say I starved myself into becoming—

lost, a comma adrift in silences,

a heartbeat trailing only questions in its wake.

What does it mean to devour the light,

to swallow radiance until the stomach protests,

no longer able to hold roads—

no longer able to be anything but the desire to consume.

Âmî Jey is an Indigenous poet, occupational therapist, and healthcare reform advocate. Their work delves into themes of vulnerability, healing, and self-reclamation. Âmî's poetry has been published in Wingless Dreamer anthology Echoes of Frost and Fantasies, The Sacred Tree, and Down in the Dirt