Split Ends
I
want to want to go to the party, but I do not want to go. I know I will not enjoy it. I will meet people who will tell stories that are slightly better than my stories. There will be people who will describe their lives - lives slightly better than mine. There will be people who have hair with fewer split ends.
I want to be a person who does not care about these things – who can go to parties and just enjoy the drinks and balloons and admire people’s haircuts. I think that the only reason I do not want to go to the party is because I am a person who cannot, and I want to be a person that can – a person who can see a good haircut and not see it as a better haircut than mine, just see it as a haircut on that head and mine as a haircut on my head.
Instead of going to the party, I want to eat the pistachio cake with lemon frosting in the fridge. I do not want to want to eat it. I want to be a person who wants to eat steamed broccoli when they are sad that they do not want to go to the party even though they want to want to go. But I am not, so I go to the fridge.
The pistachio cake with lemon frosting is not in the fridge.
I sit down on a kitchen chair. It feels uncomfortable and platey. I get up and realise that this is because there is a plate with pistachio cake crumbs and swipes of lemon frosting on top of the chair. I guess I would make me uncomfortable too if me sat on I. The plate seems to have acted fairly, unlike my housemates. They must have eaten all the pistachio cake with lemon frosting before they left for the party. I had my right ear to the door of my bedroom, but I only heard laughing, no cake-eating. They must have chewed with their mouths closed because I am usually very good at hearing food-related activities. For example, I always know when someone is eating chips and not only from the crackling foil either - but even from the much quieter crunching mouths.
I think it would have been nice if they had left a piece for me though. I want to not care about this - to be a person who can brush off their housemates not leaving them a piece of pistachio cake with lemon frosting, like a hair dresser brushes the cut split ends off someone’s shoulders. But I am not. Because I am not, I want to be a person who can talk to them tomorrow about why I think that eating all the pistachio cake with lemon frosting is inconsiderate. I do not even want to bring the fair-minded plate on the kitchen chair into it.
It would be even better if one day my hairdresser gave me a really good haircut. Then I would want to go the party and things like disappearing pistachio cakes with lemon frosting would not bother me anymore.
About the author
Jessie Perrin is a writer and teacher currently based in Sydney. Her work has appeared in publications including Voiceworks, Scum Magazine, Lor Journal and Underground Writers and has also been heard on FBi Radio's All The Best.
