Dressing up loneliness is much like dressing up ramen, dressing up ramen is much like dressing up solitude, a single plate, dinner routinely for one. Instructions: gather errant coins, a sweaty fistful of laundry machine’s favorite snack (a quarter) and swing open your deli door, head high, scanning shelves with no shame. Lock eyes with the robust orange package staring down from above. Reach for one. Two. Three. Crinkle. Pop. The dry bones of amateur noodles wrestle in their wrinkled womb. They cry out to be boiled and torn open, and free from your cold hands. Start with a simple base. Chicken. Although the package is pretty, find pink elsewhere. Preservative shrimp is not your friend. Don’t reach for the neon green. No. Not yet. We will add our own spice, and this new flavor threatens the canon. Boil water. Watch the noodles. Don’t they resemble a combover? How swiftly they move from brittle to soft. Add peanut butter, toast sesame seeds. Mix and sprinkle. Slice a scallion. If you can, rest a poached egg on top. Watch the yolk bleed. Cut an avocado when adventurous. The added accoutrements need not to hinder or hide the bland, but to accentuate the foundation; timeless, and reliable, much like the route placelessness of yourself, alone.
Siobhan Bledsoe is a MFA candidate at the New School in Poetry. Her recent publications include The Quietus, Human Parts (Medium), and other lovely Internet homes for experimental poetry. Including The Inquisitive Eater! When she’s not writing, she’s cooking, taking long walks (or riding the ferry), playing music (poorly), drawing, contemplating finally betting a dog, dancing, and consuming way too much television (it’s the golden age, after all.) Someday she hopes to be brave enough to do stand up. A dog lover, a sister, and a long time NYC resident, she’s read all over the city and is a part of They Said, a poetry collective. A resident at Vermont Studio Center and The Burren College of Art in Ireland, she’s looking forward to Paris this summer where a new writing adventure awaits.
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