She Is People

_______ tracks her menstrual cycle on a website and turns her socks inside-out to avoid their seams at her toes. She prefers the heels of bread. Of course, she is gluten-free now. Even when those teasing baskets come, her gut spacey, she watches friends drag crusts through garliced oil and smiles a weak smile. The bread is good-looking, but she can’t. Bring it to her mouth—actually swallow a ball of dough—she couldn’t. She sees the intestinal wall and its villi, her wall and her villi grimed like fingers caked from kneading, unable to get at all the nutrition pushing by, and her hands stall in her lap. She waits for the real food—reaches only to encircle an ice water or a red wine. It’s okay. She sort of feels holy, like an ascetic. Especially when she’s just having water. That she can feel this way at a soulless Italian franchise speaks to nothing, really. People are people.