Mint Chocolate
We all grow up, don't we?
At nine, you ask me for if I could share some of my fries. You say love is only found playing hide and seek inside a McDonald's playground, scavenger hunting for bottle-caps and making fart jokes. So as you laugh, hot breath fanning my neck, my stomach feels fuzzy from laughing too hard with you. But like strawberry ice cream trickling down my wrist, you tasted warm and sweet.
At fourteen, you ask me if we could share a kiss. You say that curiosity was only found in touching my budding breasts, what coca cola tastes like with polo, and first crushes. Against the backdrop of a lilac sky, you fold your hand into mine. Soft explosions go off in my chest, tightening at your proximity. Your lips tasted of mint chocolate, your favourite, while mine, burnt coffee. Sparks flew.
At nineteen, you ask to share my nudes. You said haven is only found in between my legs, the colour of my panties and the irresistible feeling of your manhood down in my heat. As you shove your fingers past my waist-line, I feel bullets fire in my brain, pleading you to stop in big red bold letters followed by probably what was more than a million exclamation marks. For two seconds, I felt nothing.
Mouth to mouth, it didn't taste like strawberry or mint chocolate or burnt coffee. It tasted like heartbreak soaked in the blood from splitting my lips too hard while trying to bear the pain. It tasted like cigarette butts and smoke and dead tulip petals.
Pounding in me, it didn't feel like a firework display exploding in my mind.
It felt like a fire alarm that couldn't go off no matter how much I tried. It felt like stepping on smashed coloured glass and believing you couldn't be bandaged. It felt like sitting in a tub of clean water and it still doesn't rob you of the filth you accumulated. It felt like even a thousand lashings would hurt less.
At twenty-one, you stopped asking me to share and I stopped believing that mint chocolate was ever even worth a taste.