March 29, 2021

Avert Your Eyes

guest blogger

Written By Alex Proscia

 

Please note: Alex is a long time participant in one of my online writing workshops. Her writing is most often lyrical, always powerful. Complex. Intense. Complicated. This time she chose a very different style. To tell a very different story.

The prompt word was simply: Garbage Can.

It is a flash fiction of sorts, but literally written in a flash (ten minutes to be exact) that’s not even fiction. It’s memoir. Raw, stream of consciousness, courageous, real. 

 

 

The checking, rechecking, tearing in two

The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, steps to the kitchen sink and double back again

5 steps, was it, check again.

Walking out of the room, touch the doorknob once with your right hand

Twice,

Now seven times

Don’t let the “what if?” in.

Everything anthropomorphized

Everything with a personality

Can’t leave one grape behind, leave two: a team,

A ritual to leave the room, touch the rug once in the top right corner to say goodbye

Look in the mirror over your right, no left, no right shoulder and say

See you later

See you later

Check the outlet, check it again, take a picture of it

Check the oven, check each knob, run your hand over it

Make sure it’s cold

Check it again

                                           Don’t let the “what if?” in.

For trash:

Keep it, keep it, absolutely keep it

But if you have to get rid of it, there are rules for that.

There are rules for everything,

There are rules about saying goodbye

For paper: rip in half only once

Two pieces,

No names (cross out, rip in half) NO NAMES

Check it, check it again

What if?

For tea bags, press the water out

Take 1, 2 sniffs of the wet flower smell

Say your name twice, imagine the picture from when you were twelve

Then into the can

But don’t look at where it lands.

For clothing, cut in half with scissors,

Or throw it down the garbage chute where you can’t reach it

Or

If you’re feeling particularly brave, give it away,

But don’t look at your hands while you do it.

Rip the trash bag slightly before it goes out

Two pieces, a partner,

Proper goodbyes only

Avert your eyes.


 

Alex Proscia is a 10th grade English teacher in Harlem, NY.  She has been writing poetry since childhood, often inspired by conversations, connections, and her own anxieties.  She lives in Queens with her fiancé Anthony and pets: Ziggy the corn snake, Zeek the betta, and Walt the hedgehog.

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