the other day i woke up from nightmares,
feeling so afraid
that i couldn't be alone,
so i went along with my friends
to an animal rights protest--my first.

we stood outside a warehouse,
where they store live monkeys
for cruel scientific research,
holding posters of bloody monkeys
and yelling at the concrete wall
and the unseen employees inside
"you
have no conscience. you
are evil. you
are scum."

i stayed for a while, listening to the other protesters'
anger.
but they sounded so much like the mean voices in my head
that i walked to a peruvian restaurant
in the shopping center next door,
and tried to order vegetarian food,
but the waitress didn't understand my broken spanish.

now, ordinarily, i look the other way,
don't want to make a scene,
when a little chicken grasa
ends up in my beans,
but after all that yelling at walls,
i felt too much like a hypocrite,
so i sent my order back 3 times
feeling sheepish that my request for no chicken broth
had somehow turned into an order for chicken broth.
"disculpeme."