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Raspberry Jam
By Keiran Rundle
QuailBellMagazine.com
I ate raspberry jam on warm buttered toast the delight of the red crunched with the crust of the bread and every morning I boarded the bombarding yellow school bus -plastered with dirt caked and crunchy like the edges of my toast- with a wide smile that had little red raspberry clumps in between my teeth and butter on my breath as I took on seventh grade. The girl who sat behind me on the bus spilled her milk and cereal and it soaked through the fine lines of my backpack that illusion of privacy zipped up against the rest of the world and the dripping white coated my new book soiling the pages staining the raspberry red cover with the little holly berries cased in ice I could see the ink drip off the pages the story I had violently looked forward to became a puddle of milky grey water on the cakey floor of the bus The first time my body gave into the raspberries was a wednesday morning. I had brushed my teeth I was washing the raspberry on my tongue down the drain, swirling, spiraling, funneling, water disappearing raspberry remnants fading away a bus to catch in three minutes- when I coughed. Unthinking, I didn’t cover- raspberry spat out red scarlett white porcelain of my sink water disappearing raspberry speckled on my mirror my reflection my face red red covering the bluebirds of my eyes clipping their wings raspberry jam soaking their snow tipped feathers white milk soiling the pages of my book raspberry staining the interior of the story. I screamed. Time passed. Doctor visits. Rooms with white walls. No raspberries. I threw the raspberry jam into the trash can and watched the glass of the jar shatter into thousands of little crystals infinite tiny deadly glass pieces. Like raspberry blood on a mirror. Life changing. Life. It’s life or death. Blood. They took it. My blood. My raspberries. Needles, long, in and out of my veins. My elbows were bruised from being battered with misdiagnosis. Until finally something fit and finally something cliqued. Lymphoma. Cancer. The treatment might kill me faster than the disease. Healing would destroy me. My body was raging in a civil war but there would only be one casualty . . . me. I stopped riding the bus. My parents found the time to drive me to school. It took seven minutes from our front door to the front gate of school. Seven minutes. Seven minutes to listen to the radio and sing along. Seven minutes to connect. Seven minutes where it felt like the raspberries could not find me. I was being hunted by my insides but in the bubble of the car I could see the world around me but I was safe glass walls keeping me safe this was base in the game of tag and the raspberries were “it” but here I could not be touched. But sometimes, it would. It ignored my pleas for mercy it mocked my desperation and coughing fits stole my lungs and swathed them in raspberry I would vomit and curse the toast I used to love. I spent more time in the nurse's office than the classroom. I spent more time in my bed than at school. Stubborn. was the name that the doctors gave me I did not have to go to school I refused to drop out. I told no one, no student, at my school about the raspberries who suffocated me. My teachers took pity. I’m allergic to pity. It makes me queasy. It lets the raspberries control me. They told me I had to leave school. Too many germs. My body could not handle the stress. It was my last day. I told my friends I would . . . be going away . . . for a little bit. My family was moving to Canada. I was going to boarding school. We were going on a long vacation. I was starting online school. I told many lies. I could not face the fact that my bloodstream refused to be my host in the world anymore. The girl who sat behind me on the bus had not seen me since the nightmares took over reality. She stopped me in the hallway with shame on her face. She handed me a new copy of the book she soiled with her breakfast. She did not know how dangerous breakfast could be. I thanked her and she tilted her head “why would you spend fifteen dollars on printed ink and thin paper?” She was kind. She was confused. She was ignorant about the raspberries that clotted my bloodstream. I giggled with her question, the bluebirds in my eyes tried to spread their wings raspberry jam spread over butter toast. It’s not about the ink or paper, I told her. I saw the moondust in her freckles huddle in confusion. It’s about the story. I can be. I can be anything. I am 7 and on vacation with my family. I am 15 and I have fallen in love with her for the first time. I am 23 and just bought my first apartment. I am 35 and heartbroken because my lover cheated on me. I am 47 and was in a minor car accident with my firstborn son. I am 62 and my granddaughter just became a woman. I am 81 and baking lemonade cookies for my soulmate. I am 94 and writing my will. I . . . I won’t make it to 15. I won’t get to live to 23. Or 35. My body is hosting a revolution. It didn’t like my raspberry jam habits. She didn’t understand. And I wasn’t able to form words to put the momentum of falling stars meteor showers hurricanes dust storms spinning on a swing kissing a girl eating cookies in the kitchen and making toast with raspberry jam into the paragraph she requested. But she shrugged, and smiled, and invited me over for a snack after school. I smiled and texted my mother, telling her most likely. She beamed. Her smile made my heart bubble. It took a pace like it used to when I would wake up in the morning and begin to make my toast. “I have some raspberry jam at home, I know it’s your favorite.” She looked at her toes with a question directed at me and then her eyes sought mine. I was speechless isolated raspberry. “I have cancer. I start treatment on Saturday. Today is my last day here.” It came out of me, like a repressed water stream bursting out of rock. Tears pooled in my eyes and I forgot how to breathe as I tried to quiet my raging thoughts. She pulled me in and hugged me. Her arms were a soft blanket that tethered the string of my balloon to the earth and grounded my feet on the solid floor. Raspberry jam. Glass shattered in the trash can. The sweetness on my tongue making sparkles around me. Red on the mirror staring back at me. That after school, she came to my home. I introduced her to my tired mother. And we ate butter toast in my kitchen. And spread raspberry jam over it. I had blocked the sweet memory from my mind. The way it tickled my taste buds. The way my heart froze when I bit into the toast. I may not reach 19 or 22. But I am 12. And I am here. I am with my family and with her, and I am with my stories, and I am with my raspberry jam.
#Unreal #Poem #RaspberryJam #Nostalgia #Memory #Adolescence #Cancer #Treatment #StolenChildhood
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