Oh, that's really nice, sarameg. I can really picture it. And yours is striking, deb. Good stuff.

alienation

I want to squeeze my eyes shut so tight they bleed. I want to rake my fingernails across a thousand chalkboards. I want to scream, to bite my tongue, to chew my lips.

But I can't.

I want to be able to touch people. I want them to look and see me. I want to speak and be understood, to be able to function.

But I can't.

So I ravage the cabinets to find something, anything, to do with my hands, my eyes, my mouth. So I eat, like desperate masturbation, to choke down the imperfection, to find some comfort.

Red Delicious

I remember being young and the beautiful apples grew all over our kingdom. I would walk out to the orchards and pull one, firm and ripe, off the lower branches. The peel as red as blood. The flesh as white as snow. No matter how bad things were, the orchards were my sanctuary.

I hated leaving the orchards I loved as a child. But I had to run. The men that have taken me in have no apples near our little cottage. It seemed like a dream when the kindly old woman came to the door, offering me such comfort.

Crikey, Liese. That's a chilling cry from the heart, or from the pit - I'm not sure which.

Aimee, that got me thinking about Adam and Eve, what comfort there might be for the two original apple-eaters, who exchanged ignorance for the wider world and a pissed-off deity with control issues hounding their descendents. If I wasn't in fullscale MS relapse right this moment, I'd go there - mangoes, maybe? Figs? Or the real thing, pomegranites?

Maybe the germ of the idea will ping someone with functional fingers and functional brain cells tonight.

I thought Adam and Eve, as well. I'm still thinking that one through, a little.

I was thinking along those lines, Liese, but yours more sharp and vivid than anything I was coming up with.

Because deb's reminded me of a fairy tale:

The daughters who said they loved him more than gold and jewels had cast him out and kept the treasure. The daughter he had cast out for not loving him enough had taken him in. She had won her kingdom without his help or blessing, yet she opened it to him.

It took a banquet of his favorite dishes turned bland and tasteless to convince him. She loved him more than salt. At last he understood.

Did he weep for the wasted years and wrong choices, his tears flavoring the food? Or did each flavorless bite fill him with joy?

Oh, lovely, _t!

OMG, you guys rock! I can't single anyone out because you were all so very excellent. I'm thinking on mine, now and, hopefully, will actually have time later to write it down. Too. damn. busy. Keep on writing, please! Everyone has taken a topic I honestly thought didn't have that much to say and have said so much. Made of awesome, you are.

Life By The Drop

His comfort food used to come from the grill – veggie skewers, T-bone steak, pineapple with teriyaki sauce brushed on. He made it all himself – he was a fantastic and dedicated cook, grilling at all times, even in winter.

Gradually, the grill fell into disuse, the comfort food replaced by another kind. Corn mash, filtered through maple charcoal and aged in oak for two years, drunk with water and ice. Hey, at least he was still getting his vegetables, right? That’s what he told himself, that’s what we told each other as we watched him waste away. That's how it happens, sometimes.

Thanks, deb. I wasn't sure if that one was working.

Ouch, Juliana. The, I don't know, atmosphere of that one just hurts.