Ars Poetica

I swallowed an apricot seed when I was younger. Everyone told me it was hard work to grow fruit trees especially when winter marches south and tries to pry all those tiny orange dots from stubborn wooden hands. I kept it safe, though, tucked away in the pit of my stomach where despair and embarrassment lived. I fed it reassurances: I swallowed strawberry sunsets and ate the pithy vernal blossoms of childhood. I even drank the recommended 36 ozs of filtered water every day. Years later now, its branches weave their way to my brain alongside curious blue blood. Apricot juice seeps into my veins and fills my body with sweet, yellow-orange nectar. Fruit falls out of my mouth, staining snow white pages in splotches of nostalgia each time I sit down to write.