β» ABOUT . ISSUES . EVENTS β»
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I found maggots making a home in my dirty dishes, but I
would never tell you that. They must think Iβm their queen,
sitting on a giant throne of food waste. I want to be the kind
of girl with insides like an emerald mine, but I throw out
unopened bags of soggy-brown spinach like itβs my job. I
swim in the murky pool of shit-water at the bottom of the
bag. I want to be the kind of girl that composts, but Iβm
closer to the stuff of which composts are made. Decaying by
the day. I want to be the kind of girl that eats ginger and
turmeric, but I throw those out, too. Plus rubbery bunches of
asparagus and the plastic I said I would walk to the recycling
bin. The hole in the ozone calls me its fairy godmother. I
bought an aralia from an old man named Bud who smelled
like tobacco and rainwater. I bought it because I want to be
the kind of girl that communes with nature, but it stopped
being alive the moment it was mine. I watered it once, but it
already made up its mind about me. When I walk past its
withered corpse on my porch I apologize in my head, but
never out loud. I donβt want to be this girl, the kind of girl
that lives with maggots. Shiny and sterile, an unblemished
white couch, clear blue skies wrapped in a light breeze.
Thatβs who I want to be. Iβm learning the hard way that we
donβt always get what we want. The maggots do, though.
They don't want for much. We should all be so lucky.
MADDY SNEEP's work has been featured by Bullshit Lit, Zero Readers, Stone of Madness, and others. She lives in Austin, TX with her two cats who inspire her to work less and lounge more.