salad days

or whatever mac demarco said

Decadent young woman, After the dance by Ramon Casas, 1899

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SALAD DAYS (plural noun, idiomatic)
/ˈsæləd deɪz/

1. a time of innocence and inexperience

2. a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion
   “My salad days, / When I was green in judgment” — William Shakespeare

3. also: an early flourishing period; a heyday

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it feels kind of freeing to be eating salad on a saturday night, alone and 29

but it’s also kind of sad that i’m wasting my most collagen-filled years going fucking insane

and trying to decipher why people don’t respond to my messages when mum says that i’m really fun to hang out with

and at knock offs i tell 2 of my 5 friends that i don’t want to turn 30

because you’re supposed to have a party at 30

and i don’t want anyone to know that i only have 5 friends

and they say, well, invite the 5 friends anyway

and maybe i will, but maybe i will also be wishing i could multiply their bodies into more bodies

then i could fill a whole room with people i love and not just a roomy toilet stall 

and i am lucky, i know, but i am also eating salad alone at 29 on a saturday night

so maybe 2 things can be true at the same time after all

you’ll find your tribe, mum says, when i come home from year 7 italian class crying because two girls carved my name into the wood of the desk, framed me for vandalism (they spelled my last name wrong)

you’ll find your tribe, mum says, as i flit ghost-edged through uni, sometimes not speaking to another person for an entire day, then an entire week

you’ll find your tribe, mum says, as i wave her out the door to eat salad, alone and 29 on a saturday night

but maybe lonely children grow into lonely adults

and this mythical tribe i’ve been searching for my whole life

voted me off the island long before i’d even reached its shores.