I spent springs and summers
as a child
eating the fruit from a watermelon.
Grainy sugar bites
and juice slick up my cheeks
like a Chelsea smile.
My mother used to warn me
if I swallowed a seed
it would get stuck in my belly
and grow a watermelon plant.
My stomach would expand
till I’d combust.
I always spit them out
in horror.
I spent a spring and summer
eating the fruit
from the flesh of your lips.
The bounty of two round mounds,
hard like pink sugar.
Your grip on my cheeks
with a warm hand
holding my mouth open.
To drop seeds into my belly.
To spit a virus in my throat
that grew into a giant “you” plant.
The branches
crawling up the walls of my insides
and begging
to claw my mouth open
and make me say things I don’t mean.
The dying leaves
flaking off
and swaying to the pit of my stomach
in an imaginary breeze
landing with a deafening thump.
Echoes that bounce up between my teeth.
And remind my tongue there is no more watermelon.
Just empty space.