I find excuses to hit the store daily. Draw constant lists.

Michelina’s TV dinners. Lays chips. Lots of six-packs.

I meander from aisle to aisle, relishing the movement of bodies around me. Absorbing scents of cigarettes, fleeting perfume. Smiles.

It beats bare walls and boxes stacked like a cold fortress.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.