Ache of the Hummingbird Muffin

Everyone asks how the food is, but nobody asks HOW the food is.

I have endured true struggle in this life. I have been in pain. My suffering increases with each passing day, and I do not feel stronger for it. I was told that muffins are supposed to grow stale with age, acquiring a sense of rigidity and strength only gained from a lifetime of exposure to air. But I feel weaker than ever, suffocating inside this plastic wrap. I know my story only ends in one of two ways: disintegrated by a human stomach or rotted in mold called upon by moisture I never asked to retain. I try to scream, but I have no mouth. I can only grip my liner tighter and tighter as the reality of my fate becomes apparent.

I can’t help but remember myself in my past life as a banana, comfortable and sheltered from the world in my peel, now spoiling away in a garbage bag somewhere. Is there not even enough respect left in the world to put my remains in compost? Alas, my peel ripened, but my dreams did not. I still yearn for the zest for life I had in those days. I cannot help but feel desire and hope as if I was bright yellow and starchy. I recall the sense of identity and purpose I had just two weeks ago as a banana, before my being was smashed and irrevocably lost in the mix of butter, flour, and egg.

I am now unrecognizable. If I had eyes, I would not dare look at my hideous complexion. Today, I feel more sorrow in a single piece of walnut than other muffins would feel in their entire liners. This agony is all that keeps me in my earthly muffin form. I am otherwise dissociated from this reality, a world that has rejected me and left me with only the ability to brood on my failings as a fruit. I can no longer show my face in society, for I have no more to give. And also no face.

I long for the days of hope, the days in which my vigor for life was lustful and my lust for vigor was alive. These weary old gluten proteins can’t take much more. When my peel turned darker, I knew it foreshadowed my demise. My soul hath withered like a raisin in the sun (except don’t put raisins in banana muffins, ew). My baked form has become the fruit of all evil and the dissonance between the sweet and the savory has decimated the very seed of my survival! I must ATONE for my SIN-NAMON flavored TURMOIL of an existence! The world’s gone NUTS-MEG and I can NO LONGER PINE-APPLE for ANYTHING but to be EATEN. O, TO BE OR NOT TO BE —

Wait, what are you doing? No, I’m not finished! Stop! I haven’t even gotten to the mortal coil bit! NO! IT CAN’T BE! MY STORY IS DONE! TELL MY LINER I’VE ALWAYS LOVED HER. THIS IS THE END! MU-FIN.