(no subject)
Dec. 21st, 2004 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanI found the floppy disk--it wasn't on my desk in the dorm at all, it was in the bottom of my laptop bag. Luckily Dad's weird computer could still read it--I've got prose and poetry presents for people. Some of them aren't quite done yet.
The first: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ghostgecko. I don't know if he'll be able to read this, since he's leaving the Internet for a while, but hopefully this gets through before he's gone.
“Every Friday”
After this long
you barely see them as people
Just purchases
(It’s not that you don’t care—
It’s just the way your mind works)
connecting faces with receipts. By now you should know
one at least. He comes in each Friday, stares at the tiled floor
as you ring up his items (instant oatmeal packets,
frozen dinners,
seven each week like you take home and eat alone in your apartment.
There’s that in common—you’re both lonely.
Marriages have been based off less)
but you’re not sure whether he’s lost in thought or scared (of you?
or just the world?)
Tuesday. You’re working late again
(not because you care but because you don’t
have anything you need to get home to)
and there are rat traps on the conveyor belt. You hate
when people buy them, not out of moral righteousness
but because you can imagine your own
(small, white, sweet, she doesn’t hurt anybody)
squirming with a broken back and it makes you a little sick.
He shrugs. “Rats in the basement.”
It’s the first thing he’s ever said to you
and it sounds
like he’s apologizing.
Instant oatmeal packets.
Seven frozen dinners.
Two bags of vitamin-enriched rat pellets.
You’d like to ask him about this incongruity
but people buy strange things all the time
and you don’t want your curiosity to sound like an insult.
Instead, you tell him that the generic brand is cheaper,
just as good
and your own rat can’t tell the difference.
He looks up. “You have rats too?”
And this would be a good excuse to invite him over
(to meet your rat)
but you nod instead and mumble, “Just the one.”
The next week, it’s seven bags. You see he took your advice
and bought the generic brand instead.
“You must have a lot of rats to feed.”
Your pathetic attempt at conversation.
“A few,” he says, looking at the floor again
(scared? Not anymore, he’s smiling to himself)
and hands you the money. No frozen dinners. No oatmeal.
It tops out at thirteen bags every Friday
and a few sentences exchanged. You start
bringing home chicken, noodles, spices
as an incentive to make yourself
invite him to dinner. But does he eat anymore?
Maybe with his rats. You almost want to advise him
to buy cat food instead, it tastes like fish
and is the favored cheap dinner of penniless old ladies.
The last time you see him
he’s filled a shopping cart up with the bags. You’ve
been planning to suggest tonight that he come over,
meet your pet,
have real food for once, you’ve found a recipe
even you can’t mess up. Ginger chicken.
He’s unshaven, his clothes are wrinkled and torn
and he looks like someone you saw in a cardboard box
under a freeway overpass. He’s grinning. He’s gone.
Ginger chicken and your love
will not suffice to pull him back.
by Rachel Weisserman
for Lew Lashmit
The first: For
ghostgecko. I don't know if he'll be able to read this, since he's leaving the Internet for a while, but hopefully this gets through before he's gone. “Every Friday”
After this long
you barely see them as people
Just purchases
(It’s not that you don’t care—
It’s just the way your mind works)
connecting faces with receipts. By now you should know
one at least. He comes in each Friday, stares at the tiled floor
as you ring up his items (instant oatmeal packets,
frozen dinners,
seven each week like you take home and eat alone in your apartment.
There’s that in common—you’re both lonely.
Marriages have been based off less)
but you’re not sure whether he’s lost in thought or scared (of you?
or just the world?)
Tuesday. You’re working late again
(not because you care but because you don’t
have anything you need to get home to)
and there are rat traps on the conveyor belt. You hate
when people buy them, not out of moral righteousness
but because you can imagine your own
(small, white, sweet, she doesn’t hurt anybody)
squirming with a broken back and it makes you a little sick.
He shrugs. “Rats in the basement.”
It’s the first thing he’s ever said to you
and it sounds
like he’s apologizing.
Instant oatmeal packets.
Seven frozen dinners.
Two bags of vitamin-enriched rat pellets.
You’d like to ask him about this incongruity
but people buy strange things all the time
and you don’t want your curiosity to sound like an insult.
Instead, you tell him that the generic brand is cheaper,
just as good
and your own rat can’t tell the difference.
He looks up. “You have rats too?”
And this would be a good excuse to invite him over
(to meet your rat)
but you nod instead and mumble, “Just the one.”
The next week, it’s seven bags. You see he took your advice
and bought the generic brand instead.
“You must have a lot of rats to feed.”
Your pathetic attempt at conversation.
“A few,” he says, looking at the floor again
(scared? Not anymore, he’s smiling to himself)
and hands you the money. No frozen dinners. No oatmeal.
It tops out at thirteen bags every Friday
and a few sentences exchanged. You start
bringing home chicken, noodles, spices
as an incentive to make yourself
invite him to dinner. But does he eat anymore?
Maybe with his rats. You almost want to advise him
to buy cat food instead, it tastes like fish
and is the favored cheap dinner of penniless old ladies.
The last time you see him
he’s filled a shopping cart up with the bags. You’ve
been planning to suggest tonight that he come over,
meet your pet,
have real food for once, you’ve found a recipe
even you can’t mess up. Ginger chicken.
He’s unshaven, his clothes are wrinkled and torn
and he looks like someone you saw in a cardboard box
under a freeway overpass. He’s grinning. He’s gone.
Ginger chicken and your love
will not suffice to pull him back.
by Rachel Weisserman
for Lew Lashmit
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-22 01:26 am (UTC)This is really, really, amazingly sweet. I can't fully express my gratitude without, like, hugging you. And coming from me, you know what that means.
I mean, you got it all there. I can't cook, I love ginger chicken . . . wow. Wow. It tells a great little story and everything, and so sad! "seeing them as purchases" (god, I love that - so true!). I printed out a copy and will post it in place of honor on my fridge, held by my favorite magnet (a little plastic alligator coming out of a little plastic toilet) so I can read it while I'm gone. Hopefully by the time I come back, or if I can make myself go to the local, I can have your story finished in return.
(but jeez, Rachel, even in your imagination I don't get Crispin? heheheheh . . . )
(Reply to this)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-23 12:06 am (UTC)Oh, you definitely do in my imagination. (Just not in the poem.)