Thursday, November 21, 2013

pickles






let’s keep it crisp if your salt licks will permit such perspicuity. 
you weren’t supposed to be.  I thought I had drowned you good, 
written you into the soundless suppression of a seawater death. no 
aftertaste. no thick-skinned rinds - vinegar whine - rich, laughing 
brine with that carried-away time when things settled into us and 
drifted to the bottom.

pickles make me think of you, but I don’t want to anymore. there 
was a moment when I tried to acquire your taste, even those 
versions of you fancy, encased in mason jars, or soaked in gold and 
dill.  I footed the crunchy organic grocery bills to lay a taste of you 
on my sandwich, to cut you deep to shove you in between slices to 
make a relish of cool, emotional devices.  but, the pungent pun of it
all was that I always allergic to bread and the snap of your saline 
did nothing for my disease.

I even tried to prepare pickles and preserve your peculiarities, to 
stock up our shared shelves, to more healthily nourish our shared 
selves. with cucumbers and seeds and garlics and no instructional 
help.  I even made the fucking tools needed for taking care of you.
studied up on the recipe rules to artisinally prepare you. chopped 
thin and thick homestyles when I should’ve been processing me 
and less aware of you.

So. when I found another project to admire. when your sweat and 
green wrappings no longer sustained me. when I admitted that 
pickles were gross.  when I dropped the jars to watch them shatter.  
when the stuttered putters of my marinated matter no longer 
squeezed tight against the glass coffin of our confine.  when I was 
no longer suited for the sousing of my truths
           

then I knew that your tastes were only being showcased and I knew 
that I wasn’t that starving.