The People I Left

The international store was as dim as a cave, dust collecting in every worn crack and crevice, as if it were falling apart from the inside-out. The people matched, cigarette ash on calloused hands and ages of words, conflict, conflicting words, etched into their faces as heavy wrinkles. As a child, the store was a respite from the majority white town my mom and I grew up in, and I would dash through the store as my mom warned me to stay close, run my little fingers through the loose produce-- garbanzos, peanuts, green almonds. I found out that the same people I now worked alongside saw me there when I was a tottling child.