brightness where it counts

"Hit the spot," I said quite sadly, to the ice cream truck man. He had a little scrappy beard, his face was tan and leathery, his name was Jose, because scrawled next to a little cartoon Garfield on the side of the white truck were the words "jose's cones" in lower case letters. He gave me a soft serve vanilla cone, and I lapped it up in front of him, his hands quickly furiously taking money and giving cones to the neighborhood children underneath our locked eyes, I hardly saw his hands move, blurry, as they touched my shoulders brought me closer, pulled me inside. We took off our boots and turned on the truck heater and dove into sticky sweet melting soft serve, all over the floor of the truck. Sprinkles. "This is the dream," I confessed to him, nakedly. Sweet pathetic passion. He was so sad, we were both so sad. I walked away a mess, he drove his truck playing mariachi honky-tonk, I'd never heard anything quite like it.

The sun was still in the sky, and my whole body was a candied apple. The sweet sun melting everything it touches, hit me touched me in my little ice cream soul melted me and turned the bitter into bittersweet.

"Jose, the children will forget you, but I will never forget you."

Holiday Story

On the licorice grass outside of the gingerbread house, the gingerbread woman sat gazing at the cotton-candy clouds. Three months ago, she had at long last caught the fast fruit of her husband’s loins, and she had watched joyfully as her brown belly grew. The two sat many evenings by the fireplace, candy-eyed and hopeful, as the gingerbread man recounted stories of mischief and his legendary quickness to his bride and yet-to-be-born baby son.

On this particular day in the licorice grass, she felt the thick molasses feeling of dread in her body, and she went to bake outdoors to put her at ease. No sooner had her sweet brown flesh began to bake fresh and rise in the heat, than she felt warmth between her legs. Her blood began to flow, all cherry and strawberry syrup from between her gingerbread legs. She felt the earth moving and unmoving from within and around her, from inside and outside, and felt as though she was turning inside out. As she dizzily watched the blueberry sky weaving in and out of sugar-crystal stars, her heart collapsed in the all-too-early and all-too-lateness of becoming and unbecoming a mother. She watched the nightmare of terrible treats emerge from her insides, small crumbs and gumdrops and mint sprinkles, and the sweet candied eyes of the gingerbread son she would never know. And it was that day the gingerbread family crumbled.