Wisdom Teeth

I'm slurping Jello inbetween my front teeth and thinking about when we were little girls. Every Sunday after church we'd convince our parent's to take us kids out for lunch. A gigantic buffet of Chinese/Canadian food at our fingertips. You had a more exotic pallet than that, but this was cheaper than authentic Chinese cuisine. We'd dangle our fingers in the fish tank, and wait for one of the vibrant, mustached fellows to grab hold like a suction cup. We'd eat far too many chicken balls with sweet red sauce and hold our stomachs in anticipation. We'd discover what kind of animal we were on the placemats, and make fun of whoever had to be the rat. I'm pretty sure you got a good animal, like a horse, or a tiger. We wouldn't finish our icecream, and when it melted, we'd drink the leftovers like soup. And then we'd go back to the buffet, and with our brothers and your sister, we'd pile cubes of jello in little bowls, and suck out little tubes of it with straws. We'd take one extraction of yellow jello, and put it inside of a green piece, we'd put red in blue, we'd build squiggly creations on the inside of each irradescent block. I don't know that we ever actually ATE much of the jello. Then we'd steal some candies from the front desk, shove them in our pockets, and leave with bloated, satisfied stomachs.

Now, I'm taking tiny spoonfuls, pushing it softly against the ridges on the roof of my mouth. My swollen face hurts, and consuming this stuff -what IS Jello?- isn't easy. I'm an adult now, and I don't PLAY with Jello. I EAT IT.

How are you now, anyway?

Word of the 'week':

Sarcasm

We bite the hand that feeds us

It hurts to hear you cry and to not be there with you
I hate to make you cry
My words are unleashed, vicious, second-hand
They've passed through me- a strainer
But they're still starchy and when they hit you they sting

I'm sorry I'm so afraid

I had no idea I had been this wounded

I'm like a hunting trap, ready to spring shut
on you
while you approach me with intention
Not to break me, but to disarm me...even if it means letting my jaw bite

And then, after you've pulled my clenched teeth apart,

I'll smile at you.

Because that's a lot nicer than biting.