Paralysed In The Snacks Aisle
by Ingrid Hana Wong
it’s easier now that i get enough sleep. i am alert enough to look, kept awake by ethically sourced tea and snacks with too much sodium — price tag first then the package that cannot be recycled at home, plastic crinkling; sort from lowest to highest, examine — i am learning to write essays while drinking aesthetic and impermanent cups of coffee so i know what to buy. “Sustainable palm oil is a techno-fix,” says my tutor, which i understand. nutritional information next — too much saturated fat — then the ingredients. not this one. the next package; sort from closest to furthest from me. not this one either. i don’t want to look somewhere else. i think my hand is being forced.
Ingrid Hana Wong’s poetry has been published in OTHERWORLDS by warning lines literary and other indie journals, and featured at the 2022 Wells Festival of Literature. Born in Hong Kong, she currently lives and studies in Edinburgh, where the myriad street-birds are giving her more ideas than she can write down.