Honey

by Jocelyn Ulevicus

 

Yesterday, for no reason, I remembered
the carousel at Misquamicut Beach,
the joy I felt when I was a kid riding
the flying horses and how, as I got older,
the distance between the hotel where
my family stayed, and the carousel
became less and less as I got older, I
didn’t have to ask for a ride anymore—
the carousel, now reachable by my two legs
and not my father’s car, my two legs, eager
to walk, to burn off calories, so I could be,
so I could become the elusively thin
and perfect person I’d continue trying
to be my entire life.

For everyday since, it has been summer.

When yesterday, I took a shower
to wash the sweat off my skin
from the workout routine I performed
in the kitchen, the routine I executed
in secret, in private, like when I was
a twelve-year-old girl, dropping down
to do sit-ups, spreading my legs apart to do
squats I looked down the left side of
my body, inspecting my waistline, my hip,
to see if there were stretch marks I
wasn’t forty-one anymore, but that
twelve-year-old girl doing the same thing
I could see the bottle of Herbal Essence
shampoo, the pale blue tile on the wall,
my father’s navy-blue razors,
my mother’s Ivory soap—

The memory came
and then settled back into my body as
an absolute and unbearable and
insurmountable disorder, I wanted
to escape it, I wanted to free myself from
the suggestion of mere survival, but
the bones in my ankles hurt and I’d
forgotten to write down the apple I ate,
the quarter of an apple I ate, I sucked in
my gut.

My heart pounded in my chest as
if it were an extension from the
past. I turned the faucet off and
let the water trace lines down my
body, I held a quiet palm in front
of my face to inspect it. Afterward,
I went into the kitchen naked
and licked honey off of my fingertips.
I told the kitten, I’m going to invent
a new woman. Then, I put some
clothes on and some shoes and
went for a walk.

 

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