I <3 You Like America Eats

I love you like America eats-

Unconscious and automatic.
On schedule and in between
meals, at all hours and for any
reason, nearly stoplessly, bite
after bite, in front of the TV,
wasting-my-life, always mistaking
dissatisfaction for hunger.

You come in five fruit flavors
and new, improved pastel colors.
I take whatever falls from the package
without questioning if I need it. I
receive it and love it mindlessly,
masticating away nearly passively,
because it is easier than the sound
of just declining, no thank you.

My heart has grown obese, flacid,
bloated, weak, but still it seeks relief
in what is salty, sweet and empty.

And when you ask me why I love you-

I recite for you the reasons,
like reading the ingredients
off a package of Reese's Pieces.