Cotton Candy
we were two twinkling lights
do you remember the fair?
twinkling lights and animals kept too close together
the closeness and the smell of animals and the
melting cotton candy syrup in your mouth
sometimes I wonder
would spider webs be like that?
melting in your mouth
or would they just be strings
feelings of uncomfortableness
like your uncle’s hand on your shoulder
something you can’t shrug off,
can’t get rid of.
something you know is off,
but something you have to swallow.
but we were together, at least
someone to look at,
to look at me
did you see the way that grandma
yelled at her grandson?
he’s got it bad
all unhappy families are unique in their own way
we see lots of them here
now it smells like corndogs and sweat and plastic
bunch of toddlers crawling into the bellies of big metal dinosaurs
s-p-i-n-n-i-n-g around
I eat the sandwiches we brought, the water out of the bottle
the taste of cotton candy was imagined
I had it once
when I was little
it’s stuck to my mouth
it stuck to my face
it stuck to my hands
it clung to me as a memory
and the smell made it there, in my hands
but we were poor so we brought our own sandwiches
like we brought our own candy when we went
to the movie theater
maybe if I was good I’d get one of the ice cones
with the bright, colorful syrup dripping into the cone
maybe I’d suck all the flavor out
then suck on the ice cube and memories of color
something feels wrong
something in the way you look at me, something
in the way your jaw is squared
something in the way you’ll stay with me
something in the way I want to impress you
something in the way you’re easy to impress
and so I ride that one where you go up the walls
like magnets
god why does anyone do this to themselves
and I puke out all the sandwiches next to the ride
and then he’s back
and then we’re walking and the
spider web on my shoulder is a rope entwined about me
one that I can’t shake off for the whole car ride home
through the part where he looked at me too seriously
through the part where he yelled at my friends
through the part where I threw a bottle on the ground and
threw a tantrum on the ground among the shards
through the part where I took one of the pieces of broken glass and—
well you know the rest. You remember, you remember
how I held it so hard I bled and you were sleeping and then
then you were dead in your drunken stupor
and when the flashing lights came they were
the color of a more vibrant cotton candy
and they turned me away
like I hadn’t already seen you
like I hadn’t tasted the iron or smelled it or watched the flies threatening
on the windowsill
and then the iron turned syrupy sweet
and I got off the ride and threw up
