Ava comes home
She always forgets
Which key lets her in
Maybe one day she'll have a brain tumor
Maybe that's what it means
When you can't remember which key is the house key
And which key lets you into the supply closet
At the office
Ava takes off her shoes near the door
She puts her coat in the hall closet
She takes off her earrings and puts them on the table
Next to the bowl full of spare change
She doesn't own a jewelry box
Because the earrings
And an old rusty band
Are the only two pieces she owns
Maybe she should invest in a jewelry box
But then she'd want to fill it with jewelry
And that wouldn't be practical
At this point in her life
She grabs a container from the fridge
And throws it in the microwave
At high for three minutes
That's just enough to make it hot
But not scalding
It's pasta salad
With red onions
Eating red onions on a Friday night
It seems like a sort of surrender
Like saying--Nope, I'm definitely not going out tonight
She scrolls through the DVR
And finds nothing to watch
Oh, there's plenty to watch
But there's nothing
She feels compelled to watch
She thinks about getting a cat
But that would be an even bigger surrender
Than the red onions
A single woman with a cat
A single woman over forty with a cat
At least she still wears high heels
Nice shoes, that are in no way sensible
This is her fighting
The cliche
She is on the verge
Of becoming
One cliche she will not fight, however:
Wine
She pops open a new bottle
Her third of the week
She looks around for someone to judge her
But even in this, she comes up short
So she judges herself
The red onion steams her mouth
But she likes it when it gets hot like that
She likes seeing how long she can go
Until she takes a drink of something
To cool it down
She fantasizes about going to the city
To whatever the nearest city is
The nearest impressive city
One you'd see in a car commercial
All dark and lit up
At the same time
She imagines walking down a street
In her not-at-all sensible shoes
Swinging an expensive purse at her side
Laughing to herself
Because some man just necked with her
And smelling bread
From a nearby bakery
Because that's how late it is
(In her fantasy, anyway)
She doesn't actually live near an impressive city
And necking is something nobody does anymore
At least, nobody does it on tv
And where would this necking man come from?
Where do women over forty go
Without looking pathetic?
She lays down on her couch
Which is the ultimate surrender
The real surrender
Ava may as well drape a white flag
Over herself
And close her eyes to die
She is going to fall asleep on her couch
Watching bad television
With an empty food container
Mere feet from her
And an empty glass with wine lingering at the bottom of it
This is how they're going to find me
She thinks to herself
One day I'll die like this
And they--
Who is they?
Somebody
Somebody will find me like this
It'll be incredibly sad for them
Not so much for me
I'll be dead
God this was all so morbid
Ava gets up
She goes into her bedroom
She finds a dress at the back of her closet
That reminds her of the nineties
Are the nineties back yet?
She missed the seventies coming back
But she didn't have all that much from that decade anyway
Her mother used to dress her
Like the third wife
Of a cult leader
So she burned most of that stuff
But the nineties were supposed to come back soon
Isn't that right?
Give it twenty years
And things become vintage
Ava puts on a nineties dress
And lo and behold
It doesn't fit
Not at all
Why were the young so effortlessly skinny?
And why didn't she enjoy being young
More than she did?
More than she remembered anyway
She put on another outfit
This one from last year
And she looked much more presentable
She brushed her teeth
To rid the onion smell from her mouth
Then mouthwash
To seal the deal
She went into the hall
And considered the earrings
Screw 'em
Who needs earrings
She put on the not-so-sensible shoes
And took her coat out of the--
No, it was warm
Who needs a coat
She had no idea where she was going
Maybe just for a drive
Maybe to the nearest cliff
To look out over it
And think up poetic suicide notes
Maybe she'd surprise herself
And bring back necking
With some man
At some bar
She was too old to be at
In her head it was like a car commercial
Her, Ava
Driving through a generic city
With some low-throbbing techno song
Playing underneath her
In the commerical
She'd have sunglasses
And her hair would be perfect
And she'd have a look on her face
Indicating 'don't mess with me'
And also 'I'm a tiger in bed'
But if that all didn't come true
It was no big loss
For now she just wanted out of her little apartment
And the 'now this will happen'-ness of her life
She wanted to say she did something
Without thinking
Without giving it even
A second thought
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