my roomate put the zac efron poster back up
“Is There a Real Way to Be Me?” by Montserrat Serra Nonell
and she says it brightens up the place but his eyes follow me while i’m trying to cook and i just don’t like the eggwhite way his gaze curls along my spine. i knit-purl-knit while the pasta boils and beg the housewife in me to flee out west and start anew, but the tasks i must complete before i can book the ticket drool at my aching feet. i’m his, this high-school-has-been-basketball-star-go-wildcats immortal nine-to-five husband who sits static in the living room while i scrub this place livable. something about him is difficult to shake. maybe it’s the way his lifeless face is printed matte two-dimensional on flimsy posterpaper, how his arm props on cleaved chin, slicing connect-the-dots over exposed moles, how he makes me feel the lesser part of a collectible salt-and-pepper shaker set picked up at a roadside junk shop. in the mirror i am sunken and my dress must be taken in, eyes chasms; not hungry but supper is still on the table and ready for his rhapsodic face, two plates promptly at five-thirty, and he steps out of the wall to keep me company. i pick at my meal. he is still paper thin. he smokes putrid nothing when i whisk the dishes away, returns to his place above the television. i feel his eyes on me again as i clean, hear his croon that i’m such a good wife for him. bile rises and in the sink pruny fingers unringed wring themselves out on the apron. i flip the shredder on. my roommate will be upset tomorrow but tonight i will finally sleep alone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shelby Rice is challenging you to single combat. They have work published in HAD, American Literary Review, Rejection Letters, Okay Donkey, and more. Originally from Dayton, Ohio and legally blind (two things unrelated, they think), their simple pleasures include Skyline and using analepsis to confuse and misdirect their enemies. Follow them on twitter @orcmischief (if you dare).
about the artist
Montserrat Serra Nonell was born and settled in Granollers, Barcelona (1980). She studied Arts in Escola Massana in Barcelona, and Master in Arttherapy at University of Barcelona. Nowadays sets her work between abstract paintings and textile sculptures. She has a poetical view of composition and color that gives a sense of ethereal and warm in each of her works. Her most explored topic is the ephemeral of time and the beauty of life because of that. Recently she is doing a closer look at family lineage and the spiritual connection as a mundane and real approach to herself. Fabrics and collage are the choosen language to dive into those subjects. Her most recent works explores textures and forms mostly in touchable sculptures. She dives into soft movements, fragilty and color fading away through time. Montserrat wants to give an spiritual experience, to wake up feelings of any kind and create an inner dialogue about why are we doing what we do in our lives. She invites us to turn on the light to those moments when questions are deep and dark.She says even then we can find a place where feel sheltered and protected and that space is within us, through our spirit connection.