from eden

i. peach jam has never been a taste that has settled well upon my tongue. with it’s undeniable sweetness, the way it seeps into the gaps between my teeth (sugar long drained out and a body long neglected make wicked waltz within them). the way it fancies to drench me in its overwhelming sweetness and homely feel; it sits in invitation the way a lioness must make home within the cave, to open up her furs and say "come in". i await its cold spread over the warm comfort of baked goods (deceivingly so, it all melds together. it’s fine. it’s fine. i do not hate this). there is a metaphor in there somewhere. there must always be shock to come after the war. nothing gold can stay. i will die because i have felt too well. what is sweet is just as deadly. but for now, i can still pick the softness of the bread from the thick taste of the jam, and the world does not feel like it is ending. the sun rises and sets upon plastic, plaid covered dinner tables, and the wind howls with its early morning certainty. it is beautiful to see, and all is to be seen. 

ii. i do not like fig jam much better, not when it is gagged down my throat or my fingers are the one to feed. 

some time, some many suns and moons ago, when my hands were small and my skin didn’t have enough room for the scars it carried, i must have loved this more. i had so much love left to be taken. i must have loved the way spring dew gave way to grass blades and mud caked on the soles on my feet, when there were many places to run and the world was so open with its hands. i must have been going to some place that locks itself to me now. (i want to see it again. i want this place to feel like love again) i must have had something to seek out in that plump, violet fruit. was there a key within the seeds? the days when the branches could hold my body give way to smeared memories now, if they could even be called my own, and the suns and the moons shrivel up the pitted seeds of the trees. (winter comes when i begin to recall the ways my hands picked up at the fruit, the branches shrink beneath at my touch, the leaves wither away; i am fine. i am fine. i am fine. the death of the trees means new seasons to come, but i don’t think i could ever make well with gardens.) when they pull the crates of fruit to rest into the dust-coated concrete cavern, situated at the end of the hall, only a door away from my room, i wonder if it would be some kind of sin to sneak one for a bite.

(could i be forgiven for such an awful thought, to be a child in that childish, selfish nature. would eve spring me from her rib then, if she knew my impatience, if she knew the ways i wanted to take?)

iii. the bite of the biscuit cuts into me some way i don’t think i can explain. it’s smothered in the same apple butter that i had always loved growing up, and the taste has not seemed to change. rather, it is i that has changed, that has committed the awful disobedience of growing. that i have allowed my limbs to extend, to reach out and above, that i have ever allowed my eyes to open (i want to close them, to be able to— 

my body does not feel right against the wood of the chair or the cushion or the seams long since sewn and the paint rubbing my leg even though it has long since dried. my back is weeping as i hold myself there or maybe the pain has been always resting somewhere deep within my bones, my stomach turning upon itself. 

i’ll excuse myself, i’m not feeling well— 

but eating must make that stomach of yours feel better have you tried to take another bite. how could you say you don’t like it anymore you’ve loved it growing up how could you tell her no and don't you know what this means to her because oh you've gone and gotten so big and oh you remember how when you were younger and she held you as if you were of her own womb and 

i hear voices when the house is quiet. i hear them when the house is full. they speak in words i
know more than any child should ever have been taught. i remember when they used to preach. i
remember we share the same blood.

we all come together to make these jams and to pluck the fruits do you remember the ages we used to spend on the farms or when you used to pick every fruit you could eat and bite it to your lips do you know how often it was almost poison have you bitten the fruit now 

how much blood would i have to drain until we're just strangers? 

iv. do you think jesus would have died on a biscuit? could dough hold nails through hands? could the body be the bread (what if jesus died not for our sins but for obligation? i could understand him then. we all have people we'd die for because there is no other place they love us more.) 

my body is buried someplace in the garage between weathered jars and peeling labels. this is where we keep the jams. (the biscuits don't live here. jesus can't die on these floors) i am nestled between the grayed floors and the wheels of the ages old car, that must have carried me once. i wonder if the car came before or after the fire took this home once before. when my grandparents had it rebuilt, they asked to have it built to mirror the one that got struck with lightning. (there's something morbid there. living in the corpse of a house killed once before. wearing the skin of what was before. stay as you are do not let the world feed you its snakeskin). 

my body is in the carpet covering the stairs. it is ripping up at the wood, where waxed
light brown makes nest against shining rails. i fell down them once, i am falling again. (i am
everywhere in this home and i am nowhere all at once.) 

(everything is all on a silent ticking that only i can seem to hear, isn’t it? there’s a clock somewhere in these walls that’s always been counting down, so loud i must have known it since the womb. the clock that chimes when my midnight strikes, and i’ll be back to the rags—every fairy tale i read tells me nothing good may last. 

that’s alright, i’ll only float along here, i’ll die here or i feel like i’m dying or like i’ve never been born in the first place, tell me what fits your truth. i’ll keep my eyes open, i might go somewhere i don’t can’t fit in anymore if they close. 

maybe i’ll close them, maybe i’ll let them take me away. that’s fine. that’s fine. i’ll be fine. i’ll let the earth have me and maybe in some other life i could like peaches and figs and apples and i could be that thing that is so wanted and i could be wanted and that would be alright and i could sit here and i could breathe but oh, keep your lips closed. heaven knows what may slip in if you don’t.)

Nikolai Crowder