Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not

Host: The rain fell in a slow, steady rhythm — not a storm, not a drizzle, but the kind of melancholic rain that blurs the city lights and softens the edges of time. In a narrow Parisian-style café, the air was dense with coffee and candle wax, and the windows glowed amber against the grey outside.

A single violin song played faintly from an old radio — something tender, something aching.

Jack sat near the window, a half-empty cup of espresso before him, his shirt collar open, his hair slightly damp from the rain. Jeeny sat across from him, a book of poetry open in her lap — its pages slightly curled, its spine cracked from love, not neglect.

She read silently for a while before speaking, her voice barely rising above the rain.

Jeeny: “Charles Baudelaire once said — ‘Any healthy man can go without food for two days — but not without poetry.’”

Jack: smirking faintly “He must’ve been very French. Or very hungry.”

Jeeny: “Or very alive.”

Host: Her eyes lifted, dark and reflective, catching the flame of the candle between them. The rain outside drew streaks across the glass — like handwriting fading before it could be read.

Jack: “You really think poetry can fill a stomach?”

Jeeny: “No. But it can stop it from feeling empty.”

Jack: “You’re mixing metaphors.”

Jeeny: smiling “No. I’m fixing them.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his fingers tracing the rim of his cup. He looked at her the way one looks at a puzzle they both want and fear to solve.

Jack: “I don’t know, Jeeny. Maybe people like Baudelaire could live on poetry. But the rest of us — we’ve got bills, deadlines, taxes. Poetry doesn’t keep the lights on.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But it keeps you on.”

Jack: laughing quietly “You think I’d starve for a verse?”

Jeeny: “You already do. Every time you look for meaning in a world that’s built on numbers.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, the windows trembling under its weight. Somewhere nearby, a waiter lit another candle, and for a moment, the small café seemed like the last warm corner of the world.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, I used to write. Not poems — letters. To no one. Just words that didn’t fit anywhere else. Then life happened.”

Jeeny: “Life doesn’t happen, Jack. It accumulates. Layer after layer until you can’t hear yourself anymore. Poetry’s how you dig back down.”

Jack: “So now poetry’s therapy?”

Jeeny: “It always was. You just called it something else — prayer, silence, art. It’s all the same hunger.”

Host: She turned a page, her fingers brushing the words like a ritual.

Jeeny: “Baudelaire wasn’t being dramatic. He meant that without beauty — without language that gives our pain a pulse — the soul starves.”

Jack: “And you think mine’s starving?”

Jeeny: softly “No. I think it’s malnourished.”

Host: He smiled, rueful, touched — the kind of smile that comes when someone says something both cruel and true.

Jack: “You always do that.”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “Talk about beauty like it’s oxygen.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it?”

Host: The violin song changed, deepened, a darker note slipping through — the kind that makes you aware of your own heartbeat.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? I used to think poetry was indulgent. Like decoration for people who had time to think. But now…”

Jeeny: “Now?”

Jack: quietly “Now I think it’s the only thing that tells the truth.”

Jeeny: “Because it doesn’t need to explain itself. It just feels.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s the problem. The world doesn’t reward feelings.”

Jeeny: “No, it doesn’t. But it remembers them.”

Host: The rain softened, like an exhale after confession.

Jack watched her for a moment, the candlelight flickering between them — that thin line of warmth that separated loneliness from connection.

Jack: “You ever go hungry?”

Jeeny: “In every way.”

Jack: “And what fed you?”

Jeeny: “Words. Always words.”

Host: She closed the book gently, laying it on the table. The faint imprint of her fingers remained on the cover.

Jeeny: “Poetry isn’t about rhyme or rhythm. It’s the thing that keeps you human when you’re running out of reasons to be.”

Jack: “You talk like it’s divine.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Maybe that’s what God really is — language that never stops trying to understand us.”

Jack: softly “Then maybe that’s what prayer is too — poetry we whisper when no one’s listening.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The waiter passed by again, refilling their cups. The smell of coffee bloomed in the air, deep and earthy — a scent that always felt like forgiveness.

Jeeny: “You know, I think Baudelaire was daring the world to remember its hunger. Not for food, but for awe. The kind we’ve buried under our schedules.”

Jack: “Awe doesn’t pay the rent.”

Jeeny: smiling sadly “No. But it pays the soul.”

Host: He looked out the window — the city reflected there, the candlelight overlapping with the streetlights outside, turning everything into layers of gold and rain.

Jack: “Maybe we’ve been starving for the wrong things.”

Jeeny: “We have. We eat information and call it understanding. We chase profit and call it purpose. And we forget that wonder was the first nourishment we ever knew.”

Jack: “So you think poetry could save us?”

Jeeny: “No. But it could remind us we’re worth saving.”

Host: The candle between them burned lower, its flame trembling but unwavering. The café grew quieter, the rain outside gentler now — like applause fading after a performance no one realized they needed.

Jack: after a long silence “You know something, Jeeny? Maybe you’re right. Maybe poetry’s not luxury — maybe it’s proof.”

Jeeny: “Proof of what?”

Jack: “That even starving, even failing, even lost — we still crave beauty. And that craving means we’re alive.”

Host: She smiled, and in the candlelight, her face seemed to carry the same truth as the flame — fragile, fleeting, but undefeated.

Jeeny: “That’s what Baudelaire knew. A man can live two days without food. But without poetry — without beauty, without meaning — he’s not living. He’s just surviving.”

Jack: “Then here’s to not just surviving.”

Jeeny: “To hungers worth keeping.”

Host: They raised their cups — two small vessels of warmth against the chill of the world. The camera pulled back, showing the rain-slick city beyond the window, the faint glow of streetlamps, the trembling candle still alive.

Because Baudelaire was right —
a body can go hungry,
but a soul without beauty dies quietly.

And in that tiny café,
while the rain whispered and the world spun indifferently outside,
two people remembered what it meant
to be fed by words,
and to feel — truly feel —
the sweet, essential ache of being human.