Samia and I Go For Lunch

“I like her shirt!” Oh shut up Samia, why no substance? Fuck a shirt. Look at me like I’m a real person beside you cause I’m a real person beside you. Sigh, I wanna say to the penny, on the counter, that I’m jealous. I wanna say Samia take another sip of coffee! We both know there’s nothing even left in that mug you phony baloney! Blameless is the penny. I bet the penny’s never had a deadline creep up on him like the slimy hand of a great uncle at his mother’s wake. Never had to reflect on his behavior at lunch. Never had to channel the devil when the water bill arrived. I am here though, Samia. I arrived. Still, you look at me in the shape of: not enough–but I’ll get the poached eggs. Pretend this interaction will make due–but there was a time when getting poached eggs was a product of a wonderful cosmic phenomenon, Samia. Eureka. I’m on my knees. I’m counting my stars–lucky. Beautiful! Don’t you remember gasping? Beside me was you, and what lay in front of us were these things called eggs! I’m blunted, I’m unworthy, I’m shaking now–and you were too at one point! 

“How’s your brother?” Is there anything worse than waking up with about .03 seconds left of the purest bliss you’ve ever felt, only for that sharp sting to set in after you dreamt that all your dead friends were only hiding? Samia? I’m experiencing it. And I can’t even tell you. My sweater, my ring, my jeans, socks, boots, mascara and shampoo. Get off. The couple besides us are discussing if they should bother buying another mattress or if the one they have now will hold out until they’re thrown into homes or die in their sleep, and look at us–what happened? Maybe I will die in my sleep. Samia, won’t you turn out my light? Won’t you tell me a story before I go? Remember when we were kids, I ran up to you while you were spinning in circles on the playground and when you saw me you stopped. Why are you doing that? I asked. And you said Oh, I didn’t realize anyone could see me. But you never answered the question. Won’t you now? Now that I’m here, on my last leg, won’t you tell me now?

By the register is a garish slice of key lime pie spinning on a plate with a cherry on top, and I’m staring, I turn, I feel like I just fell for a diversion, Samia, a distraction. One that an adult puts on for a baby when they can tell they’re about to burst into tears. Have you ever wanted to burst into tears? Samia? Publicly I mean? Just to change the trajectory of a stranger's day? I mean scream, and howl, painfully, like someone torched your whole life, and it was burning to the ground right behind you? Sometimes I think a part of me would feel relieved if I were to see someone else do it. Sometimes I think I’d join in. Put your fork down. Put your phone down, Samia. Cry. I think it could save the world! If we all stopped what we were doing, and just wailed. For a couple hours. Hold me. Cry. Like the babies we truly are Samia. Cry.

 Do you remember when we left the dance with blood on our dresses, and hopped in the tub when we got home, how we obsessed over society’s collapse for hours? We still had all our teeth, and you said with a pickle in your hand–you let the brine trickle in the bath–that some people believe that upon society’s collapse, we will all fall into a period of mass mourning, and I agreed. (Even though the darkest of despairs, have always and will always, nevertheless, still be beacons, to us.) 

But imagine the bells! You said mouth full of kosher dill, and imagine I did! Tolling the beginning, or the end, it wouldn’t make a difference, of another day we let slip into the bin of expiration. And the crows in the sky would darken it the same. The night would come trampling in the same. The way it does, saddled on the back of a horse with a sword in it’s fist. Moments, and time, swooning like girls of the moonlight with the backs of their hands on their brows, white skin lurid in the grass, wings sewn to graves. It is nearing the end, he says to me, a man in my mind, powdering his cheeks in the silver hand mirror, which is why it tastes like blood on the tongue. Make something move Samia. Get up. I can't tell if it should be slower or faster, the white crown molding crumbling like memory, my mind hazy as a glass in the rinse cycle.

Samia, Samia the bill’s here now and I can’t believe, I can’t believe–oh take a photo! I have none, I thought there’d be more time! Even when we knew that one day our jobs would invade our lives like a parasite with a nuclear bomb strapped to it’s thorax, I feel so ambushed now that it’s arrived–don’t you? You would have! I swear! We used to dream, you and I, of a simpler life in the village, a fifteen hour work week, a restorative night's rest knowing you got all you needed that day and not a drop more. Samia, I wonder how I would’ve spent my days! I wonder what would’ve made me laugh! I wonder who I could’ve loved. Samia. We used to fly in the night wondering what had happened to the world, the politics, we chanted: Oh senile country, world that forgets it’s own name, this is where we’ve guided you so carelessly! Samia! You are pulling your wallet out of your purse, and I am wondering who I could’ve loved! Samia! I wonder if I’ll dream again. I think that grief has found me. Run off to the bathroom, Samia, it hurts, but I feel the tide has come in on us too, my dear friend, don’t you think? I’ll leave a note for you to stare at when you return with clean hands, and I’ll be long gone when you read it to yourself.

Oh Samia, Samia. You were a real one when you were one. Stay true, and stay you. And thank you. And I love you. And I’m sorry. Forever.