"eating expired things", Nicole Ann Law

I check the expiry dates on the canned food every morning, arrange them in ascending order of decay, colour code the baked beans and tuna, better than any NTUC display, you tell me to get my head out of the pantry, come back to sleep instead. 

I check the expiry dates on my makeup every afternoon, tap cakes of loose foundation onto bedside table, melt down broken lipsticks, smear concealer on my palms, one shade too dark, you tell me it looks garish, to go au naturale instead. 

I check the expiry dates under your skin every night, wrap my arms round your sleeping form, feeling for bumps and bruises on overripe fruit, matching the strained frequency of your "good night" against mental charts, you tell me there's nothing wrong with eating expired things and I believe you, one last time.

/ Nicole Ann Law writes poetry on her bus rides home and finds the best words emerge from the unlikeliest of places. She also loves swing dance, burnt cheesecake and Dean Martin.

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