Plum Dandy

I remember the first time I tried a plum. The outside was deep purple–but the blue kind, the bruise kind–with a powder finish, like it had makeup to set, so no beauty would fall out of place. I wrapped my teeth around and it burst, yellow and soft and grainy like sunlight. I stood in my parents’ bedroom in front of the big rolling mirrors, flavor bursting round in my mouth.

I’ve grown scared of plums because my father likes his fruit cold. I am the oldest girl, so I make things easy for everyone. Baba likes fruit cold, so we keep fruit in the fridge. I have to take a knife and slice the plums, which are red purple like a fresh scab. I work the pieces around my molars because it triggers less sensitivity. The skin is so sour. When your teeth hurt too bad, you start accidentally saying things you mean, like how awful the plums are this season and how you hate cold fruit, which triggers Mama and Baba to leave half the fruit out on the table in the big wooden bowl.

I gave up on plums, but Mama got worried about fruit going bad, so to make up for telling the truth, I’d eat whatever was left out on the table in the wooden bowl, no matter how rotten they seemed. I touched down to bruise soft, bruise purple. Pierced through the sour skin into golden rays and the memory of gold trim on a big rolling mirror with my mouth full.

I used to be funnier and more beautiful. Well, the brain retells it that way. Really, I was soft-spoken and fat-faced. I’m still the same. Time tries to erase flaws and, anyways, I’ve always loved the imperfect. This life, it’s just good and bad and good and bad and golden juice and sour skin and.

I still bruise easy and deep. The blue-purple kind that turns goose yellow, mirrored gold, the next day. I am never brave, never wise, and most of all, I never learn. I get through the days by pretending the vampires in my show compel me to live life and by that, they mean–I mean–live life and really enjoy it. Really get to the part where you pierce the plum's sour and everything is golden sweet. So I keep biting and biting and biting.