Almeida and Me

by Matthew Nemeth

She’s black, I’m white.  She’s close to tall, I’m close to short.  She has seven piercings and a pair of tattoos.  I have none and promised my mother I never would.  Her parents are divorced.  Mine aren’t but probably will be soon.  Her siblings have qualifiers – step and half.  I have two brothers I never see.  She gets high and eats mint chocolate chip ice cream.  I go running and buy ten dollar juices.   She likes rap, and so do I.  She likes country, so I pretend I do too.  We both like to read, but never the same things.  She’s Catholic, or at least I think she is.  I’m not sure what I am anymore.  She has a scar on her belly, I have a bump on my nose.  We’re both pretty poor—pretty and poor.  And all of this means nothing anymore.

Matthew Nemeth is a New York native that currently works as an assistant to writer Tom Fontana.  Prior to that, he helped generate the questions for the show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire—yes, he is a nerd.  His short fiction has appeared in The Opiate Magazine and The Bitchin’ Kitsch.

Photo by: Ana Prundaru