Green Babies
︎︎︎ Rebecca Grace Cyr
︎ Aug 20, 2024
All
the water in my fridge turned to vodka.
Who did this? And who sent all these texts?
I’m in the Lyft, texting. I’m in the tub, texting. I’m scrubbing the kitchen counter for, if I had to guess, the 900th time in my life—which seems low, considering.
At the cafe, I accidentally made eye contact with a man in his mid-forties, as I pulled a piece of half-chewed bagel from my mouth, to keep from throwing up. It was a pink bagel, which I hadn’t counted on, with shaving foam cream cheese, and I still threw up, but later. Not then.
Then, on the phone with my mom, she posits, They should make giant incubators,
So the parents can go inside with the baby.
There are so many babies at the park, green in the face from crying, and this, too, I just noticed:
A man wearing a rubber mask, across from me, crouched in the bushes.
The mask doesn’t have a specific kind of face or expression. It’s just rubber.
We stare at each other, then I keep it moving.
I move until the moon sinks and the sky becomes dark blue, lighter blue, then light.
In the light, I’m still wearing my too tight shoes. The shoes I’ve been breaking in for three years, and potentially forever, due to a toe problem. Here’s the problem:
My toes are as long as my thumbs,
And my thumbs are long.
And the blisters that mask my heels are even longer.
And for a long time, I’ve been waiting to tell someone, Hey, it’s my liver and I’ve got a right to use it! but my doctor won’t have it, and neither will the librarian.
At the library, I have twenty-six books on hold.
Shit, I say, pulling them off the shelf. What kind of animal?
Animals, according to the text, must invest in what’s known as hygiene, in order to survive.
So here I am, at the sink, flossing my teeth so good I’m drooling, bleeding,
Weeping, again.
Now here I go, spending $1500 of my credit card’s money on skin lasers.
Once a month are my sessions. Sessions that I think my esthetician thinks I sell sex to afford—
I don’t know why I think this, it’s just what I think, as I hover before the exit with hot skin.
I’m not a prostitute, I want to explain, but can’t work up the nerve.
Who did this? And who sent all these texts?
I’m in the Lyft, texting. I’m in the tub, texting. I’m scrubbing the kitchen counter for, if I had to guess, the 900th time in my life—which seems low, considering.
At the cafe, I accidentally made eye contact with a man in his mid-forties, as I pulled a piece of half-chewed bagel from my mouth, to keep from throwing up. It was a pink bagel, which I hadn’t counted on, with shaving foam cream cheese, and I still threw up, but later. Not then.
Then, on the phone with my mom, she posits, They should make giant incubators,
So the parents can go inside with the baby.
There are so many babies at the park, green in the face from crying, and this, too, I just noticed:
A man wearing a rubber mask, across from me, crouched in the bushes.
The mask doesn’t have a specific kind of face or expression. It’s just rubber.
We stare at each other, then I keep it moving.
I move until the moon sinks and the sky becomes dark blue, lighter blue, then light.
In the light, I’m still wearing my too tight shoes. The shoes I’ve been breaking in for three years, and potentially forever, due to a toe problem. Here’s the problem:
My toes are as long as my thumbs,
And my thumbs are long.
And the blisters that mask my heels are even longer.
And for a long time, I’ve been waiting to tell someone, Hey, it’s my liver and I’ve got a right to use it! but my doctor won’t have it, and neither will the librarian.
At the library, I have twenty-six books on hold.
Shit, I say, pulling them off the shelf. What kind of animal?
Animals, according to the text, must invest in what’s known as hygiene, in order to survive.
So here I am, at the sink, flossing my teeth so good I’m drooling, bleeding,
Weeping, again.
Now here I go, spending $1500 of my credit card’s money on skin lasers.
Once a month are my sessions. Sessions that I think my esthetician thinks I sell sex to afford—
I don’t know why I think this, it’s just what I think, as I hover before the exit with hot skin.
I’m not a prostitute, I want to explain, but can’t work up the nerve.
Rebecca Grace Cyr is a writer from Seattle. Her work has appeared in Muumuu House, Blue Arrangements, X-R-A-Y, HAD, and elsewhere. More info at rebeccagracecyr.com.
Also by Rebecca: Commuter Economy
Also by Rebecca: Commuter Economy