He leans against the window of the metro car with the like of any James Dean want-to-be, lips pursed lightly into a smirk that makes any woman’s knees weak. Among the grim expressions of others dressed identically, clutching leather suitcases, it is impossible to avoid his gaze. A lone alpha wolf by nature, his methods of stalking prey had been refined and sharpened throughout the years, perfecting the precise strategy to lure in each unsuspecting victim. He’s found one.
He straightens his tie and buttons up his blazer, appearing to be an experienced attorney-at-law, not an exhausted Columbia grad who can’t handle a long court day. He smiles (a woman’s dream) before squeezing through the congested car. He focuses on every one of her responses as he approaches, preparing to dust the brief conversation with the charm that will eventually wrap her around his long slender fingers. He uses them as skillfully as a spider uses its quick legs, spinning a web of deceit and decadent falsities. The glint of sharp emeralds behind a pair of prescription-less Armani eyeglasses make the targeted woman blush. Her flawless skin shows patches of pink around the cheeks as she watches him push the glasses over the bridge of what could have been King Arthur’s nose. They step out into the dark station and he leads her left.
The luxury of Fifth Avenue could not compare to his dwelling, the court of the most notable Arabian prince could not be matched with his cordiality. But the pleasantries are gone soon. His furrowed brow is that of a petulant child’s when denied something. He slurs insults after every gulp of the liquid courage he keeps at hand on an orderly nightstand. She stumbles out of bed, gathering clothes in the dark, fleeing with the fear of a gazelle once confronted by a lion.
The night passes, as it always does, with nightmares. The sun burns through a curtain too thin to be Egyptian but too thick to be Indian, and an expensive sound system plays an acoustic Rise Against throughout the apartment. He didn’t understand why he hated mornings with such a passion. Perhaps it was the realization that the shadow of his slim figure on crimson sheets was the only thing that would ever lie beside him in bed as he woke up with a grimace every morning.
Many years later, he remembered his first experience with ice. As he sat on the frozen wooden bench beside the lake he visited as a teenager, he thought of the early days filled with Rebecca’s laughter and Jeremy’s raspy voice teasing both of them. He let the breeze cool the fever he’d been burning up with since the morning, prickling at the nape of his neck, his temples, and his chest. The beady sweat lay motionless on his cheek, the fresh evening air almost freezing it where it was. The ashes of his dying cigarette danced onto the blanket he’d thrown over himself before walking to the park alone, deciding not to leave a note on the freezer door to explain his absence to Hannah or the children. Coughing up phlegm mixed with menthol and tar, he burned out the cig on the bench, listening to the sizzling battle between fading fire and numbing ice, the only sound that disturbed the silence of the desolated acre of memories. The darkness settled into the blades of grass and barely touched the thin layer of frozen water floating on the surface of the still lake. Naked tree branches shivered with the chill of loneliness as he stared at them, reliving in the moments he kept locked away in the deepest corners of his memory. He remembered her smile; lightly pink lips, never colored, a cute gap between her two front teeth, an extra canine to the left that never loosened up as a child. He thought of her eyes; they weren’t anything special, after all, he had seen those same hazel eyes on Jeremy’s face, and Mrs. McEntire’s, and Mr. McEntire’s, but hers somehow looked lighter framed by caramel-colored hair. He smiled at the hushed murmurs and giggles between them as they ran away from Jeremy after pulling a childish prank on him; he felt her insecure lips on his, holding hands behind the thick trunk of the tree they used as their hideaway. He thought of those days and looked back into the crystalline reflection of the lake, blurred by ice crystals and tears he refused to shed for a past that would never return. There’s a reason why they don’t let us go there at this time, Kenny. Out of the many warning she gave him that night, it was the only angry whisper he remembered clearly. He felt her small hand grasping his weakly—even though she thought she had a tight grip—pulling him away from the door. He thought of the sensation of her red scarf lightly brushing against his cheek, making his adolescent beard itch. Don’t worry, Becky! There’s nothing dangerous about it. Maybe if he would have listened to her, he would have spared himself the loathing and self-disgust he felt every night after the accident. Nineteen years later, he sat at the same place he did the 12th of February, 1985, remembering his first experience with ice. He felt the bile rising, leaving the bitter taste of hatred and regret in his mouth. He stopped pushing away the memories he had wrestled with for more than a decade, he stopped kicking blindly at the darkness and settled into the quiet confines of an empty corner in his burning heart. Her hair smelled so nice that night. She smelled like a bouquet, he decided, even though he had no recollection of smelling one since he never bought her flowers. Driving a broken down twice-hand-me-down Chevy Impala with rusted rims and leaking gas tank, it wasn’t easy to set aside cash for those kinds of luxurious gifts. There I go again, he reprimanded himself. It was like a natural defense mechanism: whenever he tried to remember, his mind jumped around, begging him to forget. But he thought hard about it, focusing on her footsteps behind him as they sneaked out of the house through the kitchen door. He wished his parents had heard her footsteps, too, and his. He wished they would have stopped them, punished them for breaking the rules and forced them to stay at home for the rest of their lives. Perhaps things might have been different. Perhaps he would have grown to be a happy man, with her by his side in moments like these. Never before had he felt her absence so pronounced, the ache in his chest so deep, so fierce, cutting into his soul so harshly. He walked before her, brushing aside leaves and branches in the darkness. He treaded the path first, assuring that there were no dead animals on the ground for her to step on and change her mind; he didn’t want her to run away without him. He eased his way between bushes dusted with snowflakes that had yet to disappear, helping her claw her way through the brush. They reached the other side, but something was different about their secret spot. Drunken laughter burst from the core of invisible junkies hidden between the trees bordering the lake. Startled, she gripped onto the back of his leather coat, pressing her body to his as if to disappear into one form. If we stay quiet, maybe they won’t notice that we’re here, she whispered. It worked; for a little while, at least. The noise they made as they tried to turn around and run attracted a lanky crack head with crazy eyes holding a butterfly knife, demanding that they hand over whatever they had. He shook his head dumbly and shrugged his shoulders, scared to death that he’d notice Rebecca cowering behind him. He thought the man was going to back away, but he simply stepped back to lunge forward and push him onto the cool rails of the bench. Rebecca fell first, tripping on the outstretched leg of a hidden junkie and hitting her head against the frozen corner of the bench. Rebecca! With a silent thud, she slid onto the ground and began to murmur incoherencies he could barely hear. He swung a punch at the lanky man the second time he tried to shove him against the tree and ran toward his best friend, his high school sweetheart, his future. He grabbed her limp form off the dirty ground, holding her by the waist and dragging her toward the other side of the lake where there seemed to be no one blocking the path out this nightmare. A screeching laughter filled his ears and he could no longer keep track of Rebecca’s breathing in his arms. The laughter came from the side, but it suddenly felt like it was surrounding him. Panicking, he lifted Rebecca into his arms and cradled her, charging forward into the forest. He was met with a fist to the nose, his entire body feeling the force of the hit. He fell backward with Rebecca still in his arms, his body crashing into the ground twice as. She rolled out of his grasp while he tried to stand up again, but couldn’t reach her as two people started dragging them away. He tried to kick at the stranger, but their grip on his legs was too strong for him to do any damage. He looked around wildly for Rebecca but he was getting too dizzy to get a good sense of direction. Swallowing down blood unconsciously and gagging, repulsed, every couple of minutes, he felt the chill of ice on his back. He gathered that they must have dragged him to the lake because the solid ground under him felt different, it wasn’t dirt anymore. The laughter continued, but he wasn’t sure it was even human anymore. It came from all angles, it struck his face from all directions, I hit his gut again and again. Whenever he tried to open his eyes, the pain in his left socket made it impossible, so he closed them again. He heard screaming in the distance. There was a Stop! somewhere. When he tried to piece the yells together he gathered someone was hollering Get off! Don’t! Stop it! but he couldn’t be too sure. The screams died out with every crack of his broken ribs, every kick reminding him that Rebecca was nowhere to be found. Finally, the beating stopped for a minute. Terrified it would only get worse, he laid still and waited until there was complete silence. Fighting the desire to lay still and fall into an endless abyss of sleep, he opened both eyes ignoring the unbearable pain that ticked within each eye. He looked around but could not see much in the darkness besides his fuzzy reflection on the surface of the lake; he smelled something familiar, though. The smell of flowers mixed with iron and dirt and sulfur filled his nostrils. The smell was barely noticeable as the blood dried inside his nose and burned with the chill of the wind. She was nearby. She must be nearby if he could smell her. Using all the strength that was left in his broken body, he lunged himself forward onto his stomach and hissed at the pain that spread throughout his body. He followed the scent of her hair, crawling toward the center of the lake. He didn’t understand why she would be sitting there, instead of running away and going home. He squinted and noticed there was a red scarf lying on the ground next to what looked like Rebecca’s body, but she was sleeping. He crawled faster and finally got to her, but noticed she wasn’t asleep. She looked at him and waited for him to save her. He smiled back at her but collapsed onto his back, reaching blindly for her hand. You’re so cold, Becky. She must have been laying there for a while. Why didn’t you call me to warm you up? It stung that she hadn’t thought of him. He felt a sense of disappointment and held on to her tighter. He looked to the sky, the world seeming to spin on its axis faster than it ever had before. Where did the greens and blues of the sky come from? He wondered. Where have all the bright stars gone tonight? It seemed that they were hiding from something. He laughed. They’re so beautiful sometimes. They kiss the moon when you’re not looking. You know that Becky? She didn’t. She would never know now, anyway. You’re so beautiful, Becky. Stars or no stars, I don’t care, Becky. I just want to be with you. She seemed to smile, or perhaps she didn’t, he couldn’t tell now that the sky was falling on him and the lights were stabbing his eyes shut. So much for the northern lights, he laughed. So much for the northern lights, he saw her laughing and gave in. The blood slipped into the cracks of the ice, spilling into the lake with his tears. Unable to move, half-unconsciously staring at her stiff body next to his, he laid in silence contemplating her blurring form. Her coat was wet with melting ice, her scarf no longer covering her pallid neck. A puddle formed like a halo around her head, the beautiful caramel turning into tar. His breath caught in his throat, much like the first time he asked her to go to a drive-in with him, only this time he was begging her to go. She was looking at him, but she wasn’t saying anything. He cried harder when he tried to speak but words didn’t come out of his mouth. The poured out of his nose, but she couldn’t hear their gooey crimson because she had some of her own stuck between her ears. He waited for someone to come, he hoped for someone to rescue her. But they didn’t. He woke up to the low beeps of a heart monitor, feeling a foreign intrusion on the back of his hand. His head felt heavy, his eyes refused to open as he stirred under foreign sheets and pillows after three days of fighting with himself. He lost the battle. You’re alive! Thank God! That must be his mother, with a thankful sigh and a sob.
Son, do you know how lucky you are? That could have been his father, stern yet relieved.
Where is…
He’s breathing, his heart rate is normal; I’d say he got through this one fine. Ah, the doctor.
Rebecca? Conversations ceased. The room became as quiet as Death himself would be if He would have gracefully taken both of their lives. He thought about that moment, replayed it again and again in his mind. What a favor that would have been. How much happier would he live if he didn’t live at all? He slowed his stream of consciousness down for a second and took the time to contemplate the lake. Frozen, tormenting, it preserved perfectly his regrets. The fever burning through reality and memories, he decided it was time to go home. He lit another cigarette and took a long drag, filling his lungs with the smoke and blowing it out in rings slowly. The bench creaked as he stood; his blanket fell discarded onto the dirt, the fabric soaking up the moistness on the leaves and grass. He threw the cigarette as far away as his bad arm permitted him to do so, and he cautiously stepped onto the ice. Just like old times. He hoped it would give out under his weight; he wouldn’t fight it if it chose to do so. No such luck. He walked carelessly to the middle of the frozen vastness and crouched down. The ice burned the naked sole of his feet, so he lay down and brought his knees toward his chest. All better. He looked to the sky once more and noticed the colors were shifting; it looked like they were dancing. His thoughts drifting away to more important matters, he felt his consciousness slowly slip away. How nice. The lights. How nice.
I hate pink. Whenever my mother cornered me in the house on a Sunday morning holding a fuchsia and white polka-dot dolly dress to my face, hot tears started forming in my eyes and a war cry was heard around the house as I ran from the hideous fabric. I hid under the dinner table, trying to blend into the wooden legs and the tablecloth in fear the days my mother came home with flamingo-colored bows and ribbons. The panic never came as strongly as it did the day a pair of pink-lemonade flats decorated with glittery flowers waited for me on top of the magenta comforter with hearts and rainbows on my bed. I tried to dash away from my room as quietly and inconspicuously as I could, lest my mom hear me and force me to wear them to a social gathering.
It wasn’t enough that I was too tall and skinny for my age: I called attention even when I was standing in a corner minding my own business. In addition to that, I was forced to beg for everyone’s eyes to land on me with obnoxious colors that didn’t suit my skin tone or complement my eyes. Whenever I asked for green or blue, the answer was always “Those colors? But they are so ugly! A little girl should always be pretty!”
I didn’t understand what the problem was. It was beyond my comprehension why my mother incessantly bought pink articles of clothing and accessories for me to wear when I clearly wanted nothing to do with them. I particularly remember sitting on the couch, little arms crossed over my flat chest, eyebrows furrowed and a deep frown on my lips.
“Oh, baby, why don’t you want to be a fairy godmother for Halloween?”
“Because they’re stoopid!”
“Come on now, they’re beautiful. You want to be Tinkerbell instead?”
“I told you, mommy! I wanna be Batman!”
“Sweetie, no! You only want to be Batman because your cousins are going to be Superman, Robin, and Spiderman. But they’re boys!” she tried to explain.
“So?! I wanna be Batman!”
“What about a Princess? You want to be a Princess instead?”
“No.” I huffed and narrowed my eyes.
“Yes, you do! Look at this beautiful Sleeping Beauty dress; it’s practically made for you. Oh, and look, it even brings a tiara!”
“I don’t like her! I don’t like ‘em! They’re boring! They can’t do cool stuff like Batman can! They don’t have a Batmobile, they have horses and cabbages!”
“What’s wrong with horses and carriages? That’s how Prince Charming comes to pick you up and sweep you off your feet.” I made a face that made it seem like I’d been pinched or slapped across the back of the head.
“I don’t want Prince Charming! He thinks he’s soooo cool but he’s not. Whatever. I wanna be Batman! Batman! BATMAN! BATMAAAAN.”
But she didn’t give up. As always, she found a way to dress me up in a poofy dusty rose colored dress, white shiny patent leather shoes, calf-length socks, a crown, and a matching wand that lit up purple and pink every time I made the slightest gesture with my hand. The next Halloween was even worse; I was forced to dress as a ballerina. The only reason why I didn’t throw a fit was because she bribed me by promising to let me dress up as a fireman the year after. That naturally backfired; my mother bought me a bubble gum nurse costume that made me look like a walking square of Double Bubble crossed with Florence Nightingale. It was something I couldn’t live down for the rest of my elementary school days.
That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be a girl anymore. I didn’t see the point in wearing flamboyant dresses and playing with Barbie, or singing in the church choir with the other little girls. I was tall, and strong, and I could win and arm wrestling battle with any of the boys in my third-grade class. I absolutely abhorred wearing white pantyhose under purple and orange dresses, hair styled in pigtails tied with fluffy scrunchies. I didn’t like being quiet and polite, and curtsy and smile at my elders sweetly. I couldn’t stand to watch As Told By Ginger or Amanda Rules, I just really wanted to catch John Cena vs. The Rock on WWE. I liked building forts and playing war, trading Pokémon cards and battling with another player on Mortal Kombat Legacy. Whenever they gave me chalk to draw hop scotch, or a hoola-hoop, I gladly traded them in for cleats and dodge balls. I was who I was, and I wanted my mother to understand that.
“¡Cuidado con la niña! Está medio rara…” my grandmother used to whisper to my mom while they did the dishes after dinner. She always seemed suspicious of something, but I never understood what it was. She gave me sidelong glances and spoke to my mother in hushed tones when I went to the park and played intense rounds of manhunt. She always frowned at me when I decided to wear jeans over flowery skirts, but never said a word directly until I was about 11 or 12, when she finally labeled me as a lost cause.
“Pareces un macho.” That was her way of telling me I looked like a man.
But, I didn’t care. I wanted to dress in red and black and blue, and wear pants and sneakers to church. I wanted to climb trees, play with dirt, run around in the park chasing a soccer ball, and play freeze tag with the boys. Nothing made me feel more complete than tying my skates and going onto the rink with my own Panthers jersey, a hockey puck and a stick, ready to challenge my best friends and cousins to a match. I didn’t want to become a ballerina, I wanted to learn ju-jitsu and become the next Karate Kid. I had explained it to my mother time and time again, I had shown her what I liked and told her that I didn’t want to do what she forced me to. Just because she signed me up for a beauty pageant didn’t guarantee that I was going to cooperate.
She already knew this, of course; I didn’t see it then, but I have an idea now. It seemed strange to me that she would sign me up for singing lessons, enroll me in a dance class, and take us to pottery barns on weekends. I didn’t know why she was so stubborn and bent on buying me every item she could find in a store that shouted GIRL. I can comprehend now why she was so offended when someone mistook me for a little boy at the grocery store one night. She was embarrassed. She tried to turn me into a little princess whenever she saw me wanting to become a warrior. She showed me how to put on lipstick and encouraged me to try on her clothes, wear her heels, and borrow her pearls whenever she saw me playing “Dad” in my childish games of House. She tried as hard as she could to sweet talk me and baby me, but I just wouldn’t let her.
Seeing there was nothing else she can do, she brought in the Matriarch to “fix” things.
“Tú no eres ninguna tortillera para estar poniéndote ropa de hombres, coño.”
You’re not a dyke, so stop wearing men’s clothing.
That was when I finally understood why my grandmother was always so disturbed when I looked like a boy: she was scared. She thought that because I played with boys and did the things boy did, I would like girls, just like boys did. This would be the worst sin I could ever commit as a Cuban woman, and I would probably have been excommunicated and removed from the family will. My grandmother’s concern wasn’t that I didn’t want to wear dresses, but that I would like what’s under them more. After I made it clear to her that I liked boys, she seemed to still be suspicious and never really felt convinced that her only granddaughter was straight.
I paid no attention to her after she very rudely called me out for being a homosexual, when I was not. Just to be cross, I started wearing cargo shorts and converse, styling my hair back into a tight ponytail, stopped wearing earrings, and befriended everyone on my cousin’s football team. I knew my mother was upset, but I never bothered to ask why. I assumed she was just having a fit similar to the one my grandmother had, and I was not willing to put up with it. I wish I would have understood her reasoning for doing everything she did then as I do now. I realized I was unfair and never gave her an opportunity, rejecting everything she did because I felt she was just being pushy. I was pushing her away when all she wanted was a little girl.
Later in high school, I discarded the baggy shorts and jeans and the oversized band tees, trading them for pencil skirts and pant suits. Getting into the Debate Team with other strong women made me realize I didn’t have to dress like a guy to be considered one of the guys. It didn’t matter anymore that I was different, that I didn’t look like the rest of them. They befriended me and paid more attention to me now that I had turned into a curvaceous teenage girl. It was even easier to get them to pay attention to my ideas and persuade them to take my advice wearing a halter top than it was if I were covering everything up.
The newfound epiphany was something I never before considered, and I was glad that I came to realize there was a balance between femininity and roughness. It now made sense to wear five-inch pumps and tight skirts with jackets and crisp button-downs that delineated my most feminine features. It wasn’t so bad to wear a pair of short shorts to field day with a purple belt, or a colorful tank top on the days it was too hot to wear a cardigan. I considered wearing sandals and flats instead of old and dirty sneakers, and the idea wasn’t foreign or implanted in my brain by my mother or my grandmother. At 15, everyone encouraged me to start wearing make-up and surprisingly, I liked it! I don’t remember ever making a conscious decision to change the way I looked and dressed, but perhaps it was just the shift from one stage in my life to another. I guess it might have been too late, but I finally came around.
Stretching fiercely and yawning with the exhaustion of a man that seldom sleeps, Damon made his way to the bathroom, blindly kicking aside clothes and shoes that were in the way. As he opened the mahogany door, the alarm clock went off, announcing that it was finally five-thirty. He was already annoyed and the sun wasn’t even out to greet him yet. Lights started turning on around the apartment automatically, and the bathroom was bathed in a dim light. Running slender fingers through thick messy hair, eyes still glued shut with sleep, he stalked into the shower and turned the cold water on, letting it run until it chilled his bones. Damon shivered, reaching for shower gels and shampoos that were nowhere to be found. “Goddamnit!” He growled and his eyes snapped open; he realized everything had been moved around: a tell-tale sign that Rosa, the housekeeper, had been there the day before. He always arrived past midnight on Friday nights with a bottle of Jack in one hand and a scantily clad female on the other, so he wouldn’t have noticed. He could have walked into a house that was ransacked and remained completely oblivious, as long as his bed was the only item that hadn’t been stolen, he probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. “I am firing that woman! How many times have I told her to return everything to its place when she’s done? What a waste of time…” he muttered angrily under his breath and stepped onto cool ivory tiles, creating a puddle on a spotless floor as he flung open drawers and opened cabinets under the sink. Finally finding what he needed, Damon harshly took the Old Spice shower gel and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror from the corner of his eye as he turned back toward the shower. He stopped suddenly. Something looked…odd. He stepped closer to the mirror and studied his face carefully. He looked into the reflection of his irritated expression, but couldn’t notice anything out of place, no asymmetries disrupting the balance of his features. He looked again and noticed that there seemed to be something different about his gaze. Verdant eyes that permanently burned with intensity looked dull and expressionless. It was as if the light from inside of him that shone through the lighthouses of his inner self were turned off. He felt as if something was missing.
Alarmed, he realized what it was he was missing—his soul. Frantically, but with a stoic expression, he dashed out of the bathroom and pushed open the heavy door. He scanned the bedroom for any clues as to where his soul might be. There were none. He paced before the bed and stopped abruptly. Did someone take it while he was sleeping? What if he had been a centimeter to the left of his dream catcher? Could evil spirits take his soul and run away with it before the morning? Did dream catchers even protect against evil spirits, or was it just unpleasant dreams? He dashed from one side of the room to another, rummaging through the immense walk-in-closet, tearing apart black, navy blue, and pin stripes, pulling through white, ivory, and crème. Did he forget to put it back on the last time he took it off? Did he remember to hang it back on wall with the rest of his work clothes? Maybe he left it in the hamper; had Rosa done laundry yet? Would she have noticed? Could it be under the bed, discarded among a dozen bras and garter belts that would never be returned? Damon rubbed his temples and swung open the door of his master bedroom, stalking toward the living room. He threw cushions around and removed parts of the leather sofa in an attempt to check between the tight spaces. He didn’t remember if it carelessly slipped out of his pocket while he watched The Colbert Report. He stopped rummaging through the loveseat and the armchair instantly when an inexplicable fear washed over him. Did the Devil finally come for it after so many years of avoidance? Damon signed his employment contract with Jackson & Jackson Prosecuting for only two years, and it had expired three months ago, right? Why would Satan himself come to claim something that had been rendered void and was then considered worthless? Maybe he could use that argument… would Lucifer accept it? Would he give Damon back his soul if he felt convinced it was a mistake? He couldn’t find anything in the living room, and he was running out of places to look. In desperation, Damon raided the kitchen, checking all the cabinets and drawers, leaving them ajar in his erratic search. He almost ripped the refrigerator’s doors from their hinges, diving through the crowded freezer and swimming through the week’s leftovers. Angrily, he punched the metallic doors, leaving a dent on the appliance and a sharp sting in his fist.
“Where is it?!” he hissed. “Where the Hell is it?!” he murmured, stalking back into the bedroom, where he started. His eyes flashed toward the balcony and a sliver of hope flickered within his lifeless insides when he noticed the doors were half-open. He pulled them back slowly, in case his soul had crept there alone and was hiding. He walked into the crisp air of the early hours of a late March weekend, inhaling deeply, holding onto the railing tightly. “Good morning.” A voice came from the far corner of the balcony. A dark-haired young woman was leaning against the cool metal, contemplating the city atop twenty-two stories. She studied him full-body and offered him a white Liebeck v. McDonald’s mug. “Coffee?” Damon accepted the offer and sipped long and slow. He took a large gulp and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and opened his eyes once more. With a wicked grin and a menacing flame in his eyes, he chugged down the rest and pulled the woman back inside. He found it.
The steam from the coffee escapes the cup; it drifts up, instantly preparing the nerve receptors inside my nostrils for a tango.
I tighten the lid to stop it; it’s teasing me.
It burns the roof of my mouth as I sip through the tiny hole on the plain plastic lid. I color it with the moistness of my lips, dusty rose with a touch of saliva.
There’s a pumpkin at the tip of my tongue; it’s so small it almost slides down my esophagus and settles down in the center of my stomach before I have the chance to notice it is there.
I lick the spiced whipped cream that has settled on my fingers; I stop it from seeping out of the top and sliding down the side of the smooth, long venti cup. I won’t let it go to waste, pooling around the bottom of the container, making a milky circle on the cherry wood table.
There’s a slice of pecan pie begging to be fondled on my dull orange napkin. It wants me to peel away the crust from the gooey insides, and make love to it with my tongue.
I do, but I think of candy canes the entire time.
