"Household Chores" by Addie Siembieda
Image by upklyak on Freepik
On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and EveryOtherFridays,
the forks go in the dishwasher with the tines down.
The tiny plates go on the top rack, and
everything gets scrubbed before it goes in.
My dad likes it like that because he doesn’t fear impaling himself
and the dishes get cleaner that way.
On Mondays, Thursdays, and TheOtherEveryOtherFridays,
the silverware goes in blades up,
the little plates on the bottom rack,
and nothing gets rinsed.
“Let the dishwasher do all the work,” my mom says.
“The dishes get cleaner this way”
I’ve read on self-help blogs that the reason most couples break up
is because of petty disagreements
that hold the place of bigger problems.
They don’t put the keys in the right place
or they don’t agree on how to load the dishwasher.
Two people so stuck in their ways,
they can’t learn how to go in a new direction together.
I don’t have that fear for myself.
I may be stubborn, born under the bull sign,
but I don’t have My Way of filling the dishwasher.
Little things like that I can adapt to in a short car ride.
After all, my whole childhood was marked by learning how to switch.
Habits, I can change like the clothes
purchased by different parents, never to leave that home.
It’s my feelings I wear as birthmark;
the only thing that can’t be bought, traded, or one-upped.
No, my future husband and I won’t fight over the dishes.
We won’t last long enough to let our problems seep into insignificant things
We’ll end dancing in the kitchen, laughing over the sink
with a gesture too dramatic, a dropped plate,
a shatter to punctuate.
We’ll stop, we’ll stare.
We’ll walk over the broken pieces at each other, cut our feet on shards,
reach to assign blame instead of for a bandaid or a broom.
Track our blood out of the kitchen,
one trail staining the carpet in the bedroom, the other, red footprints out the door
The pieces of the dirty plate will sit abandoned on the tile.
Addie Siembieda (she/her) is a first year student from Albuquerque New Mexico studying business administration at the University of Michigan. She has written for Albuquerque the Magazine and her poetry has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. In her free time, she loves running, lifting, going to football games, and photographing sunsets.
Instagram: @siembiediediedia
