Sweet Nothings

I was raised in a house where candy dishes were always full.  Where artificially flavored and colored sweets were stand-ins for the I love yous we couldn’t bring ourselves to say.  This odd trio of words felt uncomfortable in all of our mouths.  Tasted tainted when we tried to spit them out.   

In this house Literature was King but TV was God.  Everyday was a variation of:  PBS, As the World Turns, the evening news, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, the late night news and Johnny Carson.  A continuous loop of British accents, Tang commercials, sappy soap star exchanges, car bombs, da plane, serial killers, bloody bodies and baby kangaroos that pawed at Carson’s plaid sports coat passed in front of my eyes.  There were no limits.  Nothing was bad for me, a child, to see. 

I was raised in a house where dinners were either eaten alone at the kitchen counter or on TV trays in front of a not-to-be-missed show. There was scraping and slurping but little verbal interaction between us.  My parents were quiet and shy which made me quite shy.  And lonely.  I had three sisters but they were all over eighteen and out on their own when I arrived—surprise—late to this party called Family.

In this house I had primate dreams.  I longed, not for sibling companionship, but for a monkey.  I wanted a chimpanzee that I could dress in green overalls and rock until it fell asleep.  I wanted something to—can’t say—I wasn’t raised that way.   

I was raised in a house where a Mother didn’t speak her anger but let it seep out in a slam of a kitchen cupboard, in a smack of a palm on a counter, in a slip of the tongue—hell—sliding out of her Revlon Red mouth.  

In this house I had a pink room, the color of a carnation bud.  A huge inflatable heart hung on hook and string from the ceiling.  I had wood floors; a goldfish I’d won at a carnival, a diary with no key and a secret door in my closet where I could hide the cheap Raspberry Champagne I stole from my parents.  I would sneak this drink out under my winter coat, sipping it in movie theatre parking lots on cold December nights with a boy that loved (to fuck) me, wearing a tight cotton candy-colored dress and frosting-colored pumps.  I was an adolescent confection, a whipped up pastel slice of lust and liquor.  A sweet thing that left a sting. 

I was raised in a house where artistic expression was encouraged.  I spent one afternoon gluing shiny pink and silver hearts around the perimeter of my walls at the top where ceiling and sides collide.  I finished and stepped away.  The hearts were too small.  Standing back in the middle of my room they lost their sweet love form and turned into distorted dots.  Shining but lacking meaning.   

Gretchen Clark holds a B.A. in English Literature, co-teaches an online Lyric Essay course on Writers.com and is a weekly Creative Arts Mentor for at-risk teenagers.  Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Literary Mama, Hip Mama, Skirt and Flashquake.  You can reach her at prettylizard_2000@yahoo.com.