The two important facts for me.

No candies, cookies, cake, ice cream.

I’m stuck in a starvation dream.

No Mars, no Mounds, no Almond Joy.

Three Musketeers have lost this boy.

No devil dogs, Yoohoo or Coke.

It’s all a tasteless, funless joke.

My kingdom for potato chips!

But nay! No salt must pass these lips.

A pretzel would be tantalizing.

But there is no salt disguising.

All my thoughts of salted corn,

lifetime favorite, now food porn.

Pepper is the only spice

that I’ve not been warned of thrice.

Salt and sugar, S & S,

got me in this heartbeat mess.

Now I’m on the cutting edge,

out here on the isle of veg.

Raw foods, nothing boxed or canned.

Microwave meals mostly banned.

Plain old water, pure fruit juice.

Diet soda’s cutting loose.

Chemicals try hard to sweeten.

But you don’t know what you’re eatin’.

Taste bud life is now a bore,

since I’ve turned a herbivore.

I might as well chew fingernails.

And sometimes do, when all else fails.

Doc says the result’s from years of eating like an ass.

I’ve quit the drink and cut way back on both sugar and salt.

Cuts the appetite when faced with cauliflower malt.

Fat free and low sodium are now my current curses.

Don’t wanna eat nothin’ that will send me back to nurses.

In five day’s I’m scheduled for an echocardiogram.

Had one just two weeks ago, but I don’t give a damn.

Life is now remarked by time I spend with the machines.

Next in line, a heart stress tester, Don’t know what that means.

They pull all the strings now and I must do what docs say.

Eating wrong could mean swan song: my only choice, obey.

So, yogurt, fruits and uncooked vegetables are now a snack.

I remember hospital and don’t want to go back.

Hard to give up booze, desserts and chips for protein drinks.

While getting old is difficult, the alternative stinks.