All I want for the holidays is a mukbang,
the way dreamboat British Youtubers
sit around with pizza and wine on video,
and give me spicy pepperoni and sausage—
have you heard that chefs in LA now use
salad as a pizza topping—what blasphemy,
because meat is sex, like how I love straddling
men with broad shoulders, and abs abs abs,
oh you, British heartthrobs, Koreans invented
the mukbang, and let me break it to you:
Asians will out-eat you white boys every day,
because we were born and raised to devour
family hot pot and dim sum and ten-course
meals, and pass the skewers and sesame wings—
you might as well pay me to eat since it’s in
my genes, a power that traces back centuries
from respecting our grandparents and every dish
brought to the family table, and just pile on
the steamed shrimp with ginger, and spicy ramen
with eggs and seaweed, and extra hot pepper
paste on my bibimbap, let me down Tiger
beer, and no, I don’t turn red—you do, and yes,
small Asian girl eating is the fetish of our times—
let me scare you, oh white boy, transform
into a one-eyed monster whose head erupts
into a volcano every time she gobbles something
spicy, and do you want more hot pepper paste—
you can’t handle it, but let’s keep playing
mukbang, because isn’t it such a fun game,
and think about those monsters in anime
who eat everything in sight then grow
ten more stomachs, and pass the green tea
doughnuts and mont blanc cakes and mochi
red bean ice cream, because food is sex,
and all I want is a naughty video
for the holidays recorded, rewind, replayed:
food, sex, survival, and surveillance,
growing more stomachs and making love,
eating squid—tentacles out of my mouth,
octopus porn come to life, feast before
your eyes on video, and oh, the mukbang:
eat, eat, sex, sex—let’s be naughty—come here.
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