applemints-of-sunny

I sat down at my computer last Thursday night with the full intention of writing THAT POEM. Oh, don't play dumb. You know what THAT POEM is. We all know what THAT POEM is. You with the cigarette train-tracks charting your eternal drift to nowhere on the insides of your arms, you with the sludge of alcohol dripping thick & brown through veins swollen & slow & pussy as zombies, you with the eight children whose faces you can't remember & the husband in the Hamptons whose name you sometimes forget & the lover who never seems to come around as much as you pay him to – you all know what THAT POEM is. It's the rhythm beating a dull

When I was little, my mom used to carry me everywhere. She would cradle my pudgy pale body and rock me back and forth, watching me as I cuddled close to her warm body. My mom's eyes were big and blue, but were always terribly sad when they saw me. On the days when her eyes would become so glossy raindrops fell off her face, my mom would roll up my dress sleeve to reveal a delicate bangle resting around my wrist. "Your number suits you…sweet like berries…" she would coo in my ear, "Palmer and Rodney don't have numbers as sweet as yours." Her voice would weaken and shake whenever I asked what my number was. I didn't understand why it