The Sugar Has Gone Sharp

The spoon is plastic and the room is too bright.

I took a bite of the orange jello, expecting the sun,

expecting the sticky, cooling peace of being seven

and having a scraped knee be the only thing undone.

But it’s a chemical burn on the back of my tongue.

It tastes like a pharmacy, like a floor being scrubbed,

a metallic, medicinal ghost of a fruit

that was never actually grown or loved.

Maybe the grief has just rotted my palate,

or maybe the world stopped trying to hide the sting.

It’s just red dye and high-fructose regret now—

a sharp, bright, hollowed-out thing.