I am embarrassed by my dissection of the sandwich. My fingers pick away at it, clumsily pulling apart the various parts, like some inexpert surgeon.
Why did they have to put onions in it? Is nothing sacred?
Outside the window someone who looks a bit like someone I know walks by.
I continue my open-heart sandwich surgery, easing open the bread skeleton, pulling apart the strands of cheesy yellow flesh, prodding around the tomato red blood cells.
The pieces of onion are unbearably sweet, they colonise the body of the sandwich – some invading virus, uninvited guests.
Why would they ruin a good thing? Why can’t eating ever just be easy?
And you know there are worse things to face in life than uninvited caramelised onions, things you are facing right now…
Like finally finding love and then finding that even love is not enough.
But somehow the uninvited onions take the cake, or the sandwich in this case. You feel guilty wasting it, abandoning it all on the plate.
As you leave, you feel so ungrateful, imagining all the things that could have been, all the things you’ve wasted, all the things you chose to walk away from. You feel guilty for even having the luxury of choice.
You think of that light brown sandwich, its crust cradled like a tiny baby in the curve of the plate, and you feel crazy. Brave, maybe, but crazy. You think of how you chose the unknown over comfort, loneliness over companionship. You feel embarrassed for finally finding love and having to give it all up.
Hermione Cameron is currently based in London, and has an MA in Creative and Life Writing. She writes poetry and prose. Her debut poetry collection, Recipe for Being a Woman was published in 2017 by Ampersand Publishing. Hermione enjoys writing about mental health, femininity, her experience of being an autistic woman, and the messy world of emotions.
Website: hermionecameron1.wordpress.com
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