Sometimes I think maybe the world needs more empathy. So I buy some ice cream, try to imagine what it’d be like to be so cool I’m dripping sweet, so sugary that I make people’s teeth hurt when they smile. At first I want to be a big sundae with hot fudge arteries and the candied-cherry heart no one really chews up. Then I decide I’d better get two scoops of fat-free bubblegum, because nobody likes that junk and it must get awful freezer burnt waiting for someone to notice it behind the chocolate chip. I dress it up nice in a waffle-cone exoskeleton so I can get a good hold on it, but it looks strange: two violent colored plops like a flamingo and a blue parrot are mushed in a khaki tuxedo, snazzed with ice crystals and sprinkle bling. Tastes weird too, fluorescent and sour because someone made it that way by using artificial sweetener instead of the real stuff. My lips pucker like a drawstring bag tugging shut: I've had a taste but it's too hard to swallow. Just as I begin my bubblegum death march to the garbage some kid whizzes by, abstract blob of bone-dry hands and sharp teeth glinting: whiter than a deep freezer frost and dentist-approved, spiraling my cone into a lethal nose dive. Wafer tip fractures on asphalt and splatters: open-cone surgery. I watch sidewalk cracks ooze neon blood as I try to wipe my fingers clean on denim pockets. But even when the ice cream is gone my hands are still sticky.
Thought I'd try out a prose poem. It's super rough and needs major revision but I'm kind of at a roadblock with it. Maybe one day I'll revisit it, but for now, it is what it is.