surrealism
Sudra
© faboo
A belly full of asprin
pulls me down the aisle;
a bottle of conditioner whispers,
"I am unclean with the filth
of the dead."
My fingers fumble over
lipstick, eyeliner, blush
as they sing their colors.
"Eighty-fortyseven, thirty-twentysix,
forty-ninetytwo."
The sun rises.
A woman on a box of Strawberry Breeze confides,
"I slept with the photographer."
My feet shuffle in their sleep
and clockwork men shout at patrons
from the ramparts of my ears.
I start for a woman who intimates,
"Sometimes, I touch myself there."
I am uncertain if her face
is on a box.
this is about the job I had in college. see, most chain stores like to inventory all of their stores at the same time. we'd have these huge clumps of cvs, A&E, or (as in this case) eckerd. I'd wake up somewhere between 4am and 5am to be at a store that started at 7am (often after inventorying another store the night before). there was one early morning store where I literally slept through an entire aisle of product, only waking up when I realized I was writing in the counts for the final eight feet of shelf.
now, for some reason, during my last string of eckerds, I ended up counting the feminine hygiene aisle for nearly every store. either I'd be assigned it, or it'd simply be the next undone aisle. I don't know if you've ever taken a good look at the pictures they put on douche boxes (and if you haven't, I don't recommend it), but the facial expressions on the women in the pictures are bizarre; entirely unlike how any ordinary person would look at you.
at some point after seeing enough of these boxes, the absurdity of these women started to get to me. I started imagining them saying things as I scanned and counted their boxes; somewhere in the middle between thinking "I bet she'd say...." and hearing actual voices. as well as the two in the poem, they said other really fucked up things like, "I've never had an orgasm," and "the clitoris is a liberal myth."
I am glad I don't have that job anymore.
© faboo
A belly full of asprin
pulls me down the aisle;
a bottle of conditioner whispers,
"I am unclean with the filth
of the dead."
My fingers fumble over
lipstick, eyeliner, blush
as they sing their colors.
"Eighty-fortyseven, thirty-twentysix,
forty-ninetytwo."
The sun rises.
A woman on a box of Strawberry Breeze confides,
"I slept with the photographer."
My feet shuffle in their sleep
and clockwork men shout at patrons
from the ramparts of my ears.
I start for a woman who intimates,
"Sometimes, I touch myself there."
I am uncertain if her face
is on a box.
this is about the job I had in college. see, most chain stores like to inventory all of their stores at the same time. we'd have these huge clumps of cvs, A&E, or (as in this case) eckerd. I'd wake up somewhere between 4am and 5am to be at a store that started at 7am (often after inventorying another store the night before). there was one early morning store where I literally slept through an entire aisle of product, only waking up when I realized I was writing in the counts for the final eight feet of shelf.
now, for some reason, during my last string of eckerds, I ended up counting the feminine hygiene aisle for nearly every store. either I'd be assigned it, or it'd simply be the next undone aisle. I don't know if you've ever taken a good look at the pictures they put on douche boxes (and if you haven't, I don't recommend it), but the facial expressions on the women in the pictures are bizarre; entirely unlike how any ordinary person would look at you.
at some point after seeing enough of these boxes, the absurdity of these women started to get to me. I started imagining them saying things as I scanned and counted their boxes; somewhere in the middle between thinking "I bet she'd say...." and hearing actual voices. as well as the two in the poem, they said other really fucked up things like, "I've never had an orgasm," and "the clitoris is a liberal myth."
I am glad I don't have that job anymore.