empathetic grits
James Bowden
I met a girl on tinder the other day. she’s about to be a senior at princeton. told her I probably wasn’t looking
for anything, I was still reeling from Kristine and besides I wasn’t that attracted to her. her name was Agnes,
and reminded me 1) of the restaurant in Pasadena Antonia had raved and even posted about, which was quite
expensive from what she told me, that I intended to try when I went back, and 2) the character from David
Copperfield who takes on an almost angelic role in the narrator’s life, putting him and her father before herself,
who somehow ends up quite deprived herself.
we got boba and matcha at junbi, and talked and walked for a couple hours before getting wawa and talking
some more. I ate two sandwiches, I hadn’t eaten anything but group meeting lunch.
she told me that she knew she was just here to fill a quota. talked about her friend from Missouri, dirt-poor but
somehow lucky enough to get into Princeton, who intended to major in film until she got here and realized
there wasn’t a film major so studied German. nobody stopped her. each summer, and now that she’d
graduated, she went home and worked at the same gas station. had an uneducated boyfriend she was trying
to convince to come with her to Germany to work whatever odd jobs, and I don’t think he even speaks German. why would he?
told me she genuinely wanted to go to grad school, but had to find an industry job to get her baby sister out of
her parents’ toxic household in the Philippines. that she sent money to her younger sister at Dartmouth
whenever she wanted to buy supplies to cook herself nice things. how she whispered to her now-dead
grandfather in some Chinese dialect I’d never heard of, was the only of her sisters who could speak it because
she’d been his favorite, how she had to translate for them when grandma called. that she’s afraid to spend
money. that most days she just eats grits. and she spent $6 on boba with me, and another $5 for a sandwich
later. what the fuck?
it got dark. I told her I had to go sleep soon, in order to visit my friend in Philly the next morning. completely
unnecessary. I mean, come on, grits. almost wanted to invite her in for sex out of empathy.
I just heard a piece called “Eating Greens” by Steven Mackey yesterday, which I think helped form the title. I also just saw the movie version of Where the Crawdads Sing, which was actually quite nice in my opinion, but which also contained scenes of the little girl trying to scrape together to afford some grits. This poem was written a few weeks before that, but, well, I’m adding it to the website now.