CHOCOLATE EXPLANATIONS

“Right. . .!”

I try to explain it
with chocolates

that she( girlishly )
keeps trying to eat.

I pick a luscious
dark chocolate seahorse

And I say “Now this is. . .”

( and she finishes my sentence for me )

“. . .your hippocampus!”

She squeals. . . delighted with herself.

“That’s correct!”
I praise her
“. . .it’s shaped like this seahorse!”

“And it controls
your memories of you
your “who you are”

your “how your self assembles
its sense of self

. . .with all its past and future mysteries!”

“Yes. . .yes. . .that’s it!

She claps her hands
thrilled to bits

by the familiar telling
the reassurance of sounds.

And this twisted twirl of almond
with a real almond in the centre of it

“. . . is your amygdala!”

She blurts out before me.

“You got it”
I smile.

“Everyone’s got one!
a seahorse & an almond
one on each side of our brain.”

“Now the almond tells you how
to respond to the things
that you’ve assembled
into a sense of self

. . .with the proper emotion

. . .the right feeling.

. . .whether you just like

or love it”

“Oh, I love it. . .I love it!”

She almost sings.

“Now, explain it to me again!”

I give her the finished explanations
and she eats them

with much exaggerated
mmmmming & ohhhhhing.

“I love your explanations
about what’s wrong with my thingy”

She knocks upon her head
like it was a door
to a self that she had
locked herself outside of.

Most times
she doesn’t even know

her name

or who

or what

she is.

But she loves this story of

HIPPOCAMPUS AND ITS FAITHFUL AMYGDALA

She loves

each sound

each word

each letter

each pause

of the chocolate

explanations.