Nebraska has over 6 million head of cattle
and is perhaps the largest beef producer in the world.
This is strange, juxtaposed to my neighbors
who are Hindus, from India.
On all sides, I am surrounded by young, attractive,
friendly Indians
living in Nebraska,
studying information systems.
I rarely eat beef, but I joke, for them,
this place must be some kind of sacrilege,
or purgatory
where they go before returning home to join the "growing middle class"
we hear so much about.

They have gatherings, food,
language and ways
of maintaining hegemony among their group
while they are here, in my hallway,
and I am alone.
I have no information to manage,
no home to return to.

They gather in my neighbors’ apartment
talking, late into the night
I once made friends with two of them
who, unlike the others, were both atheists
instead of Hindus.
They told me that Hindu women, like the ones next door
do not have *** before marriage,
but the men do.
This seemed like a paradox, but I believe them to this day.
And when I hear this platonic conversation, muffled by the walls
it sounds like pigeons
cooing
flapping their wings in an alleyway
And having nowhere to go.
The countless, devout Hindu men
visiting my charming neighbors
remind me of adolescence
how I used religion as a cover for my shyness
I admired these men, in their pursuit
of something I was told to be obtainable
and then I remembered all the people
who were not devout
******* the religious girls I tried to flirt with
while I was in high school.
I laugh.
I wish there were a high minded reason I stopped believing in the zombie Christ,
but it was the fact that no one from my church was having *** with me, because
of God and all that, but they were having *** with other people.
**** christians, really, you can have them all.

It’s easier to imagine my neighbors as trapped birds
subtly fighting for scraps
without ****** desire
than to imagine them as people like me,
who know what they want but assume it’s out of reach.
The alternative, to know that they are having ***,
and I am not,
is too upsetting.

I want them to sound like cooing birds,
shy and timid and lost,
because that is how I feel.
But, if their voices, distorted by the walls,
sound like pigeons to me,
what must my silence sound like to them?
How do they want me to seem?

Lonely people, quiet people,
sad people, fending for scraps of trash.
That is not them, but it is me.

I realize it is easier to be a Hindu
than an atheist
in Nebraska,
and it doesn't matter what (or if)
you eat
when you're alone.