Brown bread in a can - soft, and with raisins, and no prep!
Consistent. Available at any time. No love in it. Or was there?
Sweet, predictable, always there.
Packaged up from a conglomo company.
Tater tots. Another conglomo food.
Stuck in their little shape, unable to move, or change.
Just change color with heat.
One is talking to me. It didn’t want to be that shape
among so much conformity and sameness.
Macaroni and cheese in a can.
Conglomo again. Just open it, heat it, and eat it.
Love? In food? What love?
Just plop that shit in a pan, heat it, and eat it.
There was something in a can, I think it was the macaroni and cheese.
When I read what was inside, I never ate it again.
A friend at the time came over.
My assigned friend (not friend material) and I asked Beverly if she would eat it.
She said yes, so we heated it up for her.
She ate it.
The fine print said: Contains chicken livers, chicken gizzards, chicken skin.
We told her what was in it after she ate it.
Beverly was no longer a friend of mine.
This is similar to dad ordering tripe salad for me when he took me out,
just once in my life. And telling me what it was after I ate it.
Both have a gaslighting feel to them. Not kind.
I lost a friend. Dad thoroughly broke an already broken connection.
I learned not to trust him. Just don’t.
The tripe salad says: You put your hair up in sponge curlers that day, you were about 9.
Risky business to do anything at all related to “primping,”
you hadn’t experienced any conscious violence over that yet though.
Your dad wanted to take you out WITH curlers in your hair.
You took them out, knowing that wasn’t something to wear in public.
Your dad became visibly angry, but tried to cover it up.
You knew he was angry and unsafe.
That he would have shamed you in some way, so just NO.
And you got shamed with the choice of food for you.
Olives - black olives. On the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.
And somehow it was OK to take them before the meal.
Didn’t precipitate violence.
Not Greek olives. I will never have to eat another Greek olive as long as I live!
Ah! Boundaries!
Lena L.