Dogfood Dinner Party
In the kitchen where cockroaches celebrate, a single mother counts her coins
Ramen boiling on the cracked stove,
shame thick as the smell that cloys.She files fake backs
and phantom jobs for a pittance from a system designed to fail
While the men in suits sip bourbon on yachts,
swapping stories about white-collar jail.She dresses her kids in hand-me-downs,
patched with hope and spit
Each box of dogfood a secret feast, pride choked down with every grit.Across town,
the headlines paint her criminal, a welfare queen to be shamed
But their outrage is performance—bank accounts fat, morality untamed.
Her neighbor’s fridge is empty, the landlord’s mercy is a lie
The light bill paid in pawned rings,
the last goodbyes never dignified.He works the graveyard shift,
trades back pain for another chance to survive
Collects stamps like scars, but dreams of steak,
of being alive.Wine pours in manicured hands at the Dogfood Dinner Party
Toasts made to “hard work” while they write off yachts as charity.The news spits fire about fraud and
theft, but the numbers don’t add up—The richest steal with pens and mergers,
the poor beg for a paper cup.
The judge sneers from a bench, gavel clean, heart sold to the highest bid
While lawyers argue over crumbs,
and empathy is strictly forbid.She pleads
her case to a clerk bored with her kind
Survival is a sentence—hope is a petty crime.Yet, at the dinner party,
plates overflow, laughter oiled with disdain
They snicker about those “other” people,
never feeling hunger’s pain.No audit for the banker,
no jail for the senator’s son
The only real justice comes from the loaded gun.
Her children learn to play the system, a game nobody wins
Welfare shame passed down like bruises,
pride thinned by sins.She feeds them canned apologies,
powdered milk with grit and rage
While the guests toast to tax breaks,
drowning guilt with every wage.But one night
the lights go out in the fancy part of town
Dogfood is served on china plates,
and every lie comes down.The riot is in the pantry,
the revolution at the door—And the ones you called “scum” will feast
while you sleep on the floor.
When the smoke clears, and the news moves on to fresher blood
The mothers will count their children,
and every one is made of mud.There is no moral, just hunger,
and the shame you tried to sell
If there’s a hell, it’s plated in silver, and it tastes familiar as well.