I am a small clean piglet Snout pressed against the knuckles of life In vain hope of a sugar cube It’s ten years since I’ve left the country and still I have recurring dreams of roaming foreign supermarkets staring at a jar of pickles like it’s the face of Our Lady, Star of the Sea solemnly analysing the condiments and crossing myself before the noodles and I miss the cultural signifiers and subliminal promises of the packaging in gleaming red and blue with their proud stripes and thrilling starbursts I miss the inexplicable candy and the muffled piles of bread and the benevolent anointing numbness of the fluorescent lights it’s one large gift shop and my heart is the tour guide I miss the snacks and it’s been so long that I wonder if I was ever there at all and my feet are glued to the ground now and the fluorescent light and uncharming price-points of our own supermarkets makes my brain itch and my skin grow wrinkled and floppy And my father leans across the table and explains that there’s a new internet joke where you call people “Karen” and he’s convinced the sauce in canned spaghetti is cut with pumpkin ever since they outsourced the factories overseas and the moment is as warm and wholesome as a lentil so wholesome I could just sob I am a small clean piglet Snout pressed against the knuckles of life In vain hope of a sugar cube I know those supermarkets were the real museums and no cathedral could be as holy will I ever see them again was I ever there at all
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