an embarrassing fandom kid

If it’s Wednesday, she is making tamales,

and if it’s Sunday, it’s black bean soup,

& my oldest brother is sneaking extra bacon into the stockpot,

& you might not think bacon has a place in black bean soup,

but you would be wrong.

I swear, it tastes like forty loaves and two fishes.

My oldest brother chopped onions like he was cutting their hair.

My brother made the best goddamn ribs you’ve ever had in your life.

My brother never ate a single meal he cooked in that kitchen,

his body a different kind of hungry.

when I said it was impossible to leave that house empty,

I wasn’t counting the years he left & did not come back.

addiction is not the kitchen fire I was warned of.

It is not that gentle in its timing.

doesn’t torch everything you love at once and leave you to rebuild it,

instead, it burns the bread, & then the casserole, & then the photo albums, & then the way my dad used to laugh when we were all home together playing Boggle & we could not smell the smoke,

& I don’t understand how people can say the word heaven like it isn’t a swear word,

like it doesn’t make my mama gasp, press her whole hand into her mouth, & wonder who taught you to say that shit in polite company,

because really, when you say heaven, it’s just a shined-up way of saying

not here,

so either way, we’re left holding not-enough hands & trying to remember how to set a smaller table.

when my brother was like four years old he sprinkled a packet of taco seasoning onto the soil in our front yard,

& he waited for the taco shells to grow.

& the next morning,

my mom woke at like 5 AM to kneel in the front garden & push six taco shells into the soft dirt there,

& when he saw them, he said, I knew. I knew that they would grow here.

& we did not bury his body.

but if we had, I know nothing would have grown there.

tell me again about the part where grief is not my name.

I will tell you, my parents have not kissed on the lips since the nineties.

I will tell you, there is so much I did not say out of respect for the living.

I will tell you, one of the first rules of working in a kitchen is you never try to catch a falling knife.

but lord, if we didn’t try anyhow.

lord, if we aren’t a family of good intentions

My yearbook photo was a picture of some random baby off of Google I photoshopped my 17 year-old self’s head onto. It made it in.

Slipped a video titled “hot busty lesbian porn” into the personal folders of everyone in my computer class, which after they all crowded around to see what it was, turned out to be the video for Never Gonna Give You Up (it was 2007, so not yet a worn out joke). Thanks to them (like idiots) deciding to swarm a computer with sound, the computer lab filled up with cheesy ‘80s pop and the sound of me laughing so hard I ended up on the floor clutching my stomach.

Figured out that the school board internet filters blocked based on words and URLs, so I bypassed them simply by pinging their IP addresses, giving me free reign to Youtube and wherever else I felt like going to. I abused this power, and the fact I luckily had one of the computers with built-in speakers, to blast copious amounts of death metal all class.

Formed an air band called Minotaur Lizards whose career peak was “playing” a montage of classic rock songs during a school presentation.

Acted out the mock trial that made up the final for our senior year Law class as head prosecutor, wearing no shirt, no socks, a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and shorts. Somehow got 10/10 for “appropriateness of dress” by being so utterly wrong that the teacher considered me to have looped back around.

Made sure that the yearbook contained the words “Harry Potter erotica”, and nobody realized until it had already gone to print.

Did accounting for some of the pot dealers in my year and ended up taking a good cash bonus home after my suggested “baked sale” hit it big.

Managed to get out of gym class the last two years on the promise to teachers that if I kept a friend, who was in a wheelchair and one of the above-mentioned dealers, occupied and out of trouble, I could skimp on doing class for non-test days and eke out a 75%.

Turned in so many bullshit essays and “I was bored on this vocabulary test so I write it all in haiku” results that teachers would be disappointed if I turned in ‘normal effort’ work.

Found out someone I really disliked hated my laugh, and dialed up how totally hilarious I found Cool Runnings so much that my laughter got him into a hissy fit that ended with his suspension.

Figured out the school’s weak exits where one could slip through without being noticed, and began selling this information to people once our school cut its truancy officer for budget reasons.

Managed to send through enough filthily-worded Valentine’s Day candygrams with the help of a friend on the inside that there were no candygrams the next year.

Did most of my work for my last year on a single piece of paper I’d just fold up and stick back in my pocket out of general laziness and my lack of need for notes. Math teacher kept poking fun at it, which led to an escalating war of attrition that ended when I handed in a test written on a corn tortilla.

And if you don’t experience, you wonder if something is wrong with you, like you’re not pretty enough or desirable enough for it.

too big and old -_- 

Meanwhile Hades is in the background “????? UM??? PRETTY GIRL??? WHY ARE YOU HERE?????? YOU AREN’T DEAD???” 

And Persephone (who was originally called Kore just a little fyi) just looked at him and said “I like it here. I’m staying.”

And Hades kinda just went with it, until Demeter started throwing the temper tantrum of the millenium upstairs and Zeus had to intervene because this shit was getting out of hand and its actually his job to be admistrator of justice. Which considering the shit he gets up to is kinda histerical but that’s another story there. 

And basically Persephone wasn’t a prisoner or kidnap victim at all she just really loved the Underworld and her (eventual) husband, and the Greeks feared her arguably more than her husband because Hades could be reasoned with but Persephone was the one laying the smack down on sinners, and really, who wouldn’t be at least a little scared of someone who’s name means something along the lines of “the destroyer”