outside land s

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so, i'm standing in one spot staring blankly at bunches of bananas,
dimly calculating in my head the cost of an exhausting week spent in bed; unsteadily approving fat-free quiche?, or maybe blueberries?; ponderously nodding in the end to muffins, and soybeans, and i don't even really like packs of spicy asian snacks but, Yes, they Do come in costco gallon plastic jugs and after the bustle and hustle and steptotheside i'm left with a crinkly white paper cup of spicy asian snacks perched like an arrogant bugeyed dove in my hands and baked peas between my teeth that i'd forgotten that i cannot crack just yet, so i file it beneath my tongue and stifle wasabe tears as i weigh my options between the waste can like a watering hole of SnackLunchers and the eventuality of spicy asian snackmush.


so, i'm standing in one spot staring muzzily at rows and shelves and cubbies of bread,
putting it out of my mind where i possibly put those peas; wondering whether i walked or floated here, and when was the last time i've seen so many people buying so much bagged frozen fish in one place, and why there has to be so much noise&motion& cooperative confusion-


so, i'm standing in line where a $one-thirtynine latté/mocha freeeeze has appeared in my hands, thanks mom,
and by now i'm convinced that it's not my willed movement but the shuffling of the goateed men in cargo shorts, and blunt-banged women in salmon floral shirts, and sticky children in shopping carts that ushers me mindlessly in midas' maze- this must be how conveyor belts feel. -i suck in my cheeks and gather the ache in my jaw into the memory of my cool quiet room where everything is as neatly folded as a new spool of masking tape or the agreeable creases in a paper bag.




so, i'm curled at my table cleared of clutter&hustle& community cacophony, with nothing in front of me but a single sweet gardenia, thanks dad; the outside world, quietly, in a dish.  my teeth are silent, my heart aches- my triumphant return to the inside world.

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