in the bakery, the blue walls smell like baby powder, and we sit ugly on folding metal chairs, around clear plastic tables that have always felt too small.
and the glazed rings we ask for every sunday afternoon are always gone, and it’s always the after-church boys, getting the last ones.
we see them, some weeks: buttons on new shirts already hanging by thin threads, whole faces sticky after the first bite.
and the milkshakes are always either too thick or too thin, but they taste like milk and air and honey every time.
and we watch the little old ladies with baby pink lipstick come and go, and sometimes, we go years without seeing matilda, and when we do–we always do–we wonder if we’re living in a ghost town, after all.
after all, every sunday, the bakery closes at four, and the blue, blue walls look gray from outside when the lights go off.
and we haven’t seen matilda since july, and we’ve gone so much longer, but lately, we haven’t felt her, either, except in the parts of our stomachs where sinister things hide.
and the milkshakes have so many calories. and the after-church boys pay with bills instead of change, now, and you’re not supposed to think about death in the bakery, but we do. we always do.
and we pretend the chairs, icy on our calves, are comfortable. and we smile with our teeth full of sugar even when we would rather be rotting, because we’re certain that we’re close to god, this way.
credits
from how many times will i die in my head?,
released October 14, 2015
thank u victoria vartanyan for writing this beautiful little poem and for letting me use it in this album
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