The Last Time You Went To The Supermarket

By Chioniso Tsikisayi

The last time you went to the supermarket
The price of happiness had gone up,
Your heart had been put on sale,
Next to those fresh cuts of meat.
Barcoded and price tagged,
Statistics dictate that you are not the first to experience a broken heart.
Yours is a juicy sirloin marinated in the sweet herbs of regret,
The spice of indecision makes you hesitant to try again.

But you’re back on the market,
Strolling through the aisles of existence
Scoping the shelves for a new product.
Something in colorful packaging. Instant love,
Till you remember that love bought in a box is bound to expire,

You think of your grandmother who grew her own food,
How she tried to teach you to grow yours too but you had been blind
To the greater lesson,
To the hidden knowledge in the art of agriculture,
How all along she had been teaching you to grow love organically,
In the comfort of your backyard so you would never have to go out
In search for it whenever it ran out,

Relationships are better home grown than outsourced,
Better planted and watered than processed and purchased.
And still you are slow to learn the lesson,
You break the days of your fast prematurely,
The wound of disappointment still tender,
A lactose intolerant being but the sweetness of spilled milk compels you.
You’re back on the market even though you’d sworn off love for,
Good,
Claiming under false pretence to practice vegetarianism,
A new religion and yet your bones ache still with cravings for meat.
The flesh of two bodies joined together,
You are the rib seeking the body from which you were cleaved.

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