amber_waves
01-13-2004, 12:45 PM
very cliched title, i might change it...
Skin and Bones
I love my job working on the checkout at my local supermarket. Not for its **** pay or effeminate supervisors who feed off their power like sick leeches. Not for the long hours or the sharp ache in my spine that comes from leaning forward, my ass asleep and my brain on auto-pilot. No, none of this matters. My reason is that I get to see all that food, I get to cup it gently as I scan it in, I get to watch it go away into plastic bags. I say goodbye to it. I congratulate myself for loving it without taking of it. That's a special kind of love. You don't know that kind of love, that kind of conditionless love. You put these things into your mouth without thinking twice about it. You don't see them in your sleep, your wake, your restless in-between hours.
That's love. You don't know what love is.
As I scan them in, their tastes come back to me. The melt of chocolate, the first bite of an apple into dreamy white flesh, so many sensations. So many tastes. We live our lives through our senses. Taste brings us back to ourselves. It reminds us of what it is to be human.
I choose to remember. I choose not to eat. I don't need to tell you why. It's my buisness what I put into my body. Men who I allow into my body feel like that gives them the right to comment on it:
'Stop smoking, you're way too skinny. You're all skin and bones. Eat something!'
You will never know why I do what I do. I am like Kafka's starving artist, its so easy for me not to eat. I don't do it for spectators, I do it so I can experience what its like to walk without making a sound. I walk on air. If you knew what that was like you'd be doing it too. You wouldn't be at my check-out spending money on things you will make disapear. Food is something to be loved so passionatly you feel like your heart would explode from all it's holding. It's art. It's meant to be seen at a distance.
You don't understand. Don't try to understand. Go home and shovel crap into your mouths like animals. That is what you know.
I go home, riding a bus full of people too ****-scared to look each other in the eye. The lift in my building has broken again. I don't use it anyway. I run up the twelve flights to my flat. I lie against the door, grasping at the hollow of my stomach, tucking the tips of my fingers into my rib-cage. I try to listen hard for the clink-clang of my bones.
This is what I know.
Skin and Bones
I love my job working on the checkout at my local supermarket. Not for its **** pay or effeminate supervisors who feed off their power like sick leeches. Not for the long hours or the sharp ache in my spine that comes from leaning forward, my ass asleep and my brain on auto-pilot. No, none of this matters. My reason is that I get to see all that food, I get to cup it gently as I scan it in, I get to watch it go away into plastic bags. I say goodbye to it. I congratulate myself for loving it without taking of it. That's a special kind of love. You don't know that kind of love, that kind of conditionless love. You put these things into your mouth without thinking twice about it. You don't see them in your sleep, your wake, your restless in-between hours.
That's love. You don't know what love is.
As I scan them in, their tastes come back to me. The melt of chocolate, the first bite of an apple into dreamy white flesh, so many sensations. So many tastes. We live our lives through our senses. Taste brings us back to ourselves. It reminds us of what it is to be human.
I choose to remember. I choose not to eat. I don't need to tell you why. It's my buisness what I put into my body. Men who I allow into my body feel like that gives them the right to comment on it:
'Stop smoking, you're way too skinny. You're all skin and bones. Eat something!'
You will never know why I do what I do. I am like Kafka's starving artist, its so easy for me not to eat. I don't do it for spectators, I do it so I can experience what its like to walk without making a sound. I walk on air. If you knew what that was like you'd be doing it too. You wouldn't be at my check-out spending money on things you will make disapear. Food is something to be loved so passionatly you feel like your heart would explode from all it's holding. It's art. It's meant to be seen at a distance.
You don't understand. Don't try to understand. Go home and shovel crap into your mouths like animals. That is what you know.
I go home, riding a bus full of people too ****-scared to look each other in the eye. The lift in my building has broken again. I don't use it anyway. I run up the twelve flights to my flat. I lie against the door, grasping at the hollow of my stomach, tucking the tips of my fingers into my rib-cage. I try to listen hard for the clink-clang of my bones.
This is what I know.