To Bitterness

You are the dark chocolate of emotion
Why I cannot fall asleep at night
I feel you tug at my eyebrows
At my eyelids
Reminding me why I should not be happy
My mother says “Be grateful for what you have”
So I am grateful
(Never wasting food)
And my grandmother says “Be thankful for what you have”
So I am thankful
(Thinking of the starving children in Africa)
But what of the things that I do not have
Like power and responsibility? Although-
I see you on the news and on the faces of Presidents
You are everywhere, bitterness,
Antithesis of sweetness
Even in my morning glass of orange juice