'bargain basement bin'

Vignette of Kaci

'bargain basement bin'


She was trash. She knew it. Been told that since she was a child. Grew up, got a life, blew it.

She had a job once, waitressing in Okmulgee. The other girls were satisfied. They would find a husband or a new hairdo. Either would do. Who knew? Maybe some young handsome son of a farmer, or a rancher, or a trucker would come along and grab them. They kept their boobs and ass tight, just in case. And dispensed coffee, smiles, and an occasional come-hither, if Wal-Mart had a sale and they needed the tips.

Old brick buildings, in an old boom town that had busted, mattered little to the others. They would be buried here with their grandchildren weeping over them someday. Not today. There were customers to serve and a tall tight ass with an inviting package had just come in!

She was trash. She knew it. Moved from the brick that hemmed her in. Moved from the giggling girls and young men with balls but no brains. Moved to Tulsa. Found a new crowd to hang with. Poets. Drunks. Homeless. Druggies. She felt better among the trash. Like sought like she reckoned. And got into trouble. How could she have avoided it? This was what trash felt and knew.

She grew. Learned. Went back to school. And hung out with her new friends, those drunken, homeless, drugged up poets that had accepted her. They wrote; they sang; she healed. And shared what she had learned. That she was rare and precious, that she had more to give, more to receive, being different.

That she wasn’t found like her father said, in the bargain basement bin.


© Kåre Enga 2004

catalogue number: [160.813] 2004-01-22


Note: Friends, it is difficult to be wrong; but, even more unpleasant to be right. I wrote this at the Tulsa Writer's Cafe on a Thursday, January 22nd. I shared it with Kaci Jackson the 27th and read it at the Gypsy Cafe. What hurt is that I had just met her, and didn't know her well at all. So, I asked her about being treated like, feeling like, or being called "trash". Bingo! I had written this without knowing how close to the "truth" it was.

Of course, it is a poem and mostly pure fiction, but Kaci liked it and that's all that really mattered. The crowd at the coffeehouse did too. She IS from Okmulgee, by the way. Same town my father grew up in! And an INFP, "the healer".

NOTE TO RATERS/REVIEWERS:

This is poetry. It is a vignette. A prose poem may have a bit of a narrative, but uses poetic devices: rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, image, etc. It is not a short story. It is not flash fiction. It needs to be rated as poetry first. If you feel it is prose, please comment. The line between the two is murky . You may comment whether you think it is best in poetry form or in letter, prose form. I prefer prose form.