i used to read books with vivid descriptions of food, pausing to linger on epicurean passages written by laura ingalls wilder (quivering slices of pumpkin pie and at least ten different kinds of fried dough). it was starkly different from what i ate at home (eggyellow rice with soy sauce, and a lot of things from plastic bags and boxes). so instead i lived through frances hodgson burnett's descriptions of hot bread buns and even amelia bedelia's sponge cake.

i think it's affected me particularly in terms of fruit, to the point that i don't actually know what they taste like. i have strong ideas of what blueberries* and apples** and plums*** ought to taste of, and i think my brain prefers the warm sense memories well-evoked by children's literature to the refrigerated pith that i actually possess.

three.
you gave me an appetite.
i guess my mouth is looking for something in the aftermath.


* i had my first blueberries at annie and livy's house, while watching the breakfast club.
** in his third grade, in korea, my father learned to remove an apple's skin in one coil.
*** i had my first plum with jeff, the boy who caught a squirrel that bloodied up its own nose by struggling to get out of the cage.


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