Dinner With You
Dinner With You
I only ever came here for the fortune cookies
I don't know if you can tell
when I stare at the menu
under shiny plastic with a red rim
when I glance
up I can tell you're reading the Mandarin
in the menu, not the English
you glance up
can you tell that I'm hardly reading the English?
The waitress is here as soon
as she sees you
as soon as she can be
Grace!
Naia!
It's Mandarin like the menu
but I understand
this is your world
I understand so much not like when I look
at the menu I can't even begin
to pick a dish off of that
but I could listen to this forever
talking like paintbrushes and ink on canvas
Rowan,
what do you want?
I want this world
with you and shy smiles and clever jokes
and paintbrush words and restaurants down back alleys
for dinner?
my breath catches when I realize
it's about dinner
and I have no idea what I want for dinner.
Naia The Waitress
is looking at me like my lack of answer
is a crime like she's the prosecutor
I'm the defendant
No
like she's the parent
I'm the scared new boyfriend
yes like that like worse
I look down
tap a clash of characters I hardly understand
glance up Grace's smile
like it's a comedy movie
look down her finger tapping another dish
and nod
anything else?
I don't think I passed the test
a fortune cookie,
please?
nod turn around rolls her eyes.
We eat the food is good the company better
I pay the least I could do
we walk into the mist
I think we're the only ones in the world
your red raincoat black hair with little braids at the front
my yellow sweatshirt brown hair and
tucked in my pants pocket
a fortune cookie
a bit crushed from being there
I crack it in half
one for each of us
the message says
Everyone has their own hidden world
their own story
and you will soon get to know someone else's.
This is a "five" writing challenge with the words from OverTheRainbow. The words were: Menu. Mist. Defendant. Fortune. Breath.
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