Leftover Spaghetti by Raquel Silberman

The fridge is a portal into a distant reality. 

A vacant space filled with even more vacancy. A black hole. 

The plate suffocated by saran wrap looks too much like a body I can see straight through. You told me to picture the inside of my body. You said “there is no lamp to light up our lonely organs. Everything inside is pitch black.” Then you shut off the bedside lamp and went to sleep. 

The more I look at the plate, the less it looks like a bowl of spaghetti and the more it starts to look like a bowl of guts. 

If I was a puddle splayed out on a ceramic plate, my bones would be noodles, my blood absorbing them in tomato sauce, and how unappetizing I'd be. But I'd still eat it cold. 

I've been staring at the plate so long my face has flushed its color, the kitchen is starting to smell like rotting food and my feet hurt from squatting in front of the tiny fridge. 

I imagine if the fridge had eyes it’d be staring back at me. 

Its invisible gaze luring me closer to the cold noodles. 

Until suddenly my hand is grasping the chill plate and undoing the wrap and I don’t remember willing my mind to shut the door. 

I don’t bother heating up the spaghetti. I eat it cold in the dark kitchen. 

The only sound is the electric humming of the fridge, 

the occasional plopping of ice cubes in the freezer 

and the scraping of my fork on the plate. 

You could have said I made you dinner 

Instead you told me there's leftovers in the fridge.