FIVE AND DIME

Dear Diary,

I’ve been thinking about the past;
How I was a waitress working in a diner
Just off the New Orlean freeway.
Summer had descended.
I’ve picked up my old habit of eating' one meal a day.
On the weekends I'd call Bobby on the payphone
And we'd walk down to the five-and-dime.
He thought I was pretty.
I said I was clueless;
He said 'well, ain't that the same thing?'
And maybe it was.
How would I know?
I didn't know my left from my right,
But I knew the world was good.

I jumped on a greyhound.
Nineteen; Feeling lucky.
The world seems so small
And you seem so big when you're young.
On my second day in the city I walked to a five-and-dime
To remind me of Bobby, and I bought him something sweet.
I called him from a payphone outside.
It was 10¢ back then,
So we talked
And we talked
And I told him I'd give him his gift
The next time I'd see him.
I couldn't tell you now what it was,
Only that he never got it.

My days were filled with lines of girls
Wearing catholic skirts and collegiate blue.
Nobody talked.
They only pursed their lips and straightened their backs.
They all seemed to have hair shinier than mine,
Résumés longer than mine,
Vocabularies bigger than mine,
Families richer than mine.
I was told I was five centimeters too tall
And my ankles were too wide.
Bobby wouldn’t have thought
That my ankles were wide.
I walked home
alone.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried.
Then, I passed the most lush orchard you ever saw;
Trees swollen with fruits of their labor.
I found myself thinking of my Grandpa’s garden,
Peaches bruised on cobblestone,
Momma would be back in a week.

---

Poppy Higgins, 25, Sheffield - UK ✯