is it even jealousy if i don't love you anymore
by Zain Murdock
i.
because i’m thinking about another girl i saw the other
day at this same grocery store,
she looked like your type, white
t-shirt & yellow hair, i
don’t even know her name but i know you’d like her—
hey—shut up, i tell myself, this is a love diet, & basket
mandarin oranges & quinoa &
some sugar-free dressing that probably tastes like piss, thinking
about how it’s so not fair
that i have to look like the kind of girl you’d never like
ii.
i ask the cashier if they sell vodka here
she says, ma’am this is a trader joe’s
& i say, ah, yeah,
last time i bought vodka, i left it at his place
& i think he drank it all with someone else
& i saw him a few nights later & his neck
bruised like one of these oranges—actually,
can you take those off? thanks—so anyway,
i went back to my room, deepthroated
a cucumber & cried
so hard i got snot in my salad—
hey, she says
& rustles behind the counter
probably to call security but instead she
pulls out a bag of gummy starfish, slips
it in one of the brown paper bags with my receipt,
& smiles with just her eyes,
i hope your day gets better
Zain Murdock is an undergrad at Columbia University from Silver Spring, Maryland. When she dies, she hopes to grab a drink with James Baldwin and ask him if, or when, he thinks the world is going to be okay. Some more of her work can be found at Quarto Magazine and her Instagram, @zaineyre.
