Maggots

By Tan Jia Yan

/ Poetry /      

Last Friday I found maggots in my dinner. Slimy, dense things reminding me of my own mortality. The cashier at the grocer was an old man with the kind of almond eyes that make you feel translucent. Brainless too. Like a maggot. Stupid, isn't it, to think $3 would always get you something good. To think myself infallible. I thought about vomit. Sweaty strands of hair pulled back. Cold air hitting my neck like a warning. The maggots were everywhere, you see. In every train I boarded alone and in every Happy Hour. Tried to encapsulate all of it in beautiful words like sonder. It never worked. For I always thought of the same thing: the mechanics of gagging, its inherent self-preservation. My aunt’s brown eyes in my peripheral vision. Melting into a strange severance of time that even her perfume can't will back. Now it’s all blazer on. Pencil skirt wrapped motionless around my waist. All hard and unforgiving as brick. And my heart, dissolving into pebbles. For some wild child on the street to collect and keep in her pocket like a secret. An adult secret. She’d bring it back to a dining table. Full of potatoes and carrots and French beans and birthday cake. A home-cooked dinner. Free of maggots.