Cotton Candy
Cotton Candy.
Cotton candy. It’s sticky and it’s sweet and on the rare occasion I’ll pick up a cheap bag at a gas station or Wal-Mart. When I get home, I’ll close the blinds and lock the doors, change into jeans and a tee shirt. I’ll put on that song and I’ll open the bag. Imagine that I’m back at that ridiculous excuse for a carnival. With rides our parents swore weren’t safe and food that was so awful they should have given you two Rolaids on the plate.
We rode the Ferris wheel first even though you wanted to go on something scarier. We held hands and when we got to the very top where no one could see us, you kissed me on the mouth. I buried my face in your neck and kissed the sensitive skin there just once. When our feet were safely back on the ground, you started pulling me by my hand to some ride called The Decapitator.
I lead you toward the cotton candy instead. You sighed, good-naturedly, and pulled out your wallet. And I had to spend a good five minutes getting the stickiness off your fingers when the spun sugar was gone. For the next hour and half, you continued to try and pull me toward that ride where you spin upside-down in harnesses, suspended above the entire crowd, praying to a God you don’t believe in that you won’t die before you have the best sex of your life. I kept pulling you in every other direction I could think of, but eventually I was getting strapped into that ride.
You were grinning like the idiot you always were and always have been. I was not so stupidly optimistic. You laughed through the whole thing. I managed to only scream twice. Afterward you ate three hot dogs and I tried not to vomit. We went home to my house. Dad was out and we kissed and touched under the covers until we fell asleep a little after one in the morning.
For some reason I’ll never understand, that carnival was the beginning of the end. We stopped talking as much, stopped kissing as much. You got a girlfriend. I got a scholarship. Last I heard you got into some college on the East Coast. I’m still here, stuck in this city we said we’d always run away from together.
And every so often I’ll go into a gas station and buy a bag of cheap cotton candy.
We rode the Ferris wheel first even though you wanted to go on something scarier. We held hands and when we got to the very top where no one could see us, you kissed me on the mouth. I buried my face in your neck and kissed the sensitive skin there just once. When our feet were safely back on the ground, you started pulling me by my hand to some ride called The Decapitator.
I lead you toward the cotton candy instead. You sighed, good-naturedly, and pulled out your wallet. And I had to spend a good five minutes getting the stickiness off your fingers when the spun sugar was gone. For the next hour and half, you continued to try and pull me toward that ride where you spin upside-down in harnesses, suspended above the entire crowd, praying to a God you don’t believe in that you won’t die before you have the best sex of your life. I kept pulling you in every other direction I could think of, but eventually I was getting strapped into that ride.
You were grinning like the idiot you always were and always have been. I was not so stupidly optimistic. You laughed through the whole thing. I managed to only scream twice. Afterward you ate three hot dogs and I tried not to vomit. We went home to my house. Dad was out and we kissed and touched under the covers until we fell asleep a little after one in the morning.
For some reason I’ll never understand, that carnival was the beginning of the end. We stopped talking as much, stopped kissing as much. You got a girlfriend. I got a scholarship. Last I heard you got into some college on the East Coast. I’m still here, stuck in this city we said we’d always run away from together.
And every so often I’ll go into a gas station and buy a bag of cheap cotton candy.