By Cailey Tin

Eyeing my branded heels with your arm
around my shoulder, you say, It’s good that you’ve
stepped out of your comfort zone. When

I reply, the accent stiffens up your spine & I
could slip off it with ease but you squirm & so
I keep it. Here is the hair clip you gave me five

years ago, take it back. I know how expensive it was
for a Japanese thrift store. You say, Thank
you & order a smoothie. Thank you; my tongue

has learned to speak thrift store & celebrity high-heel store.
I buy identity & suck on its straw until there is
nothing left to swallow, just a refreshment, just

another drink. Thank you; I don’t belong anywhere
& it tastes luxurious, purchases from a country that
looks unique, but from where? You ask me where I got

this haircut. In another dialect you mean, is it homemade
or paid for? I was never good with scissors. It’s out
of my comfort zone to cut pieces of myself in order

to live, yet I fit in anyway. The bill is faced up &
you haven’t reached out. I recall when you were going
back & forth with high school classmates to pay

for the reunion meal. I waited at home, starving & shredded to
the bone. I don’t like reunions & hearing the accents
everyone grew up with. It’s like skin to them, a part

of a whole. A synecdoche. & there are questions
like How do you find it back home? Truth is, I needed
a change of scenery. When you showed me the old house,

it was like stepping into a thrift store. Boxes & boxes of old
clothes, broken china. You want to open me up, like
a gift. But inside is only a mixture of drinks & utensil-

like bones. There is no expression to it, nothing to unsee. You show me
an old set of clothes. Don’t act surprised when they still fit
me like the low-maintenance child who wore it first,

spilling her food on the shirt’s frayed edges & calling it art.

–

Cailey Tin is a columnist, poetry editor, and podcast host for multiple publications. Also working (or procrastinating) on pieces in piano, journalism, and debate speeches, she earned a Pushcart nomination at 13 and recognition from Ice Lolly Review, Fairfield Scribes, and more. Find her publications on Instagram @itscaileynotkylie.