I guess I was amassing a collection
So I could show my children all the places I’ve ate
Like little milestones
All the places I’ve had dead end dates
All the places I’ve gorged myself
Having just got off work
Or just smoked a bowl
Either way I felt deserving of a feast
All the places I shared stories with friends
All the places we shared kisses before we went in
All the orange chicken I ate to help sober up
All the take out I ordered when we broke up
And that one place I found out I was allergic to shrimp and threw up
Yeah I remember it all
The egg rolls, the soup, the soy sauce
The painting of pandas or dragons
The red lanterns
All the motifs
You seemingly needed to run an establishment
Like this
There are the stand outs
The Lucky Star whose pork fried rice was just cut up Slim Jims
The Panda House who treated me less like a customer and more like a friend
If I didn’t come around, they would call and ask where I had been
It didn’t matter if it was in a mall or in my small home town
I always found comfort in this other culture’s food
So while I’m waiting for all those fountain cookies to come true
I guess I’ll look back over these dozen Chinese menus