Hospital Cafeteria
by vx wenham

Runestone, volume 11

I never thought I’d be a regular at the hospital cafeteria
I checkout with the same lady everyday on purpose
I don’t know if that’s to make her pity me
Or for the familiarity

With weekly credits like an arcade
We swipe our meal cards
It’s a place people would rather starve
But we always eat
I pity everyone

I don’t wear sunscreen anymore
SPF 70 in my bathroom drawer collecting dust
And the ghosts of skin cells
Killed by the sun blinding me
While I sit and smoke a cigarette outside
What better place to slowly kill myself

leaning against an outside wall
Of a place that is full of lives past and present
Maybe some of them
will enter me through the bricks against my back

and fill the holes burned in mine
or through the trays they filled with
Insignificant and overpriced food
Sterilized
A second chance at life (on the side)