I used to eat drops of honeysuckle sweetness that sprouted outside our multi-colored pastel house. The sage green stems matched the shingles that covered my brother’s side of the house, while the bright orange flowers contrasted against my mother’s violet-purple side. The honey tasted comforting, like the pale pink rows of bricks that outlined my sister and I’s room. Blue butterflies lingered around our flowers and pressed their sad shade against my father’s office.
“Mommy, why is our house painted different colors? No one else’s house is like that.”
“Because honey, your father likes chaos, and I am an artist.”
I used to eat spaghetti on coffee-colored carpets. My father would pass my sister and me each a paper towel as we crowded in front of our microwave-shaped TV. He never told us not to spill, either because he didn’t care if we did or because he knew we would anyway. The napkins weren’t for dabbing out the maroon Jackson Pollock splotches of marinara sauce; instead, they were where we placed the copious amounts of my dad’s salt and pepper hair strands that we plucked from our bowls.
I used to eat mustard and cheese sandwiches for lunch. My mother packed them for me every day, and I would trade them for chocolate chip cookies behind the gymnasium. But when my mother needed surgery, I didn’t get mustard and cheese sandwiches anymore. My father forgot to pack my lunches. I made myself peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a replacement, but I could never reach the lunch bags, so I placed my sandwiches between two paper towels, took them to school, and hid them behind the rows of cubbies. No one wanted to trade for my crusty peanut butter-and-jellies, and I didn’t blame them. I didn’t want to eat them either; I wanted my mother’s mustard and cheese sandwiches.
I used to eat nothing except cranberry juice concentrate. My mother and sister would slump their way into bed, wearing matching PJ sets and slippers while I tiptoed to the fridge, fragmented and dizzy from low blood sugar, past the labyrinth of paintings, sculptures, turtle shells, wooden masks, and pieces of glass kept aside for future mosaic projects. My mother loves art and therefore embraces clutter. I clung to the freezer door as the kitchen shifted sideways, and spooned the concentrate straight out of the can, making sure not to use one of my mother’s hand-thrown ceramic cups. After skipping dinner, my anxious mind only allowed me to appreciate these few sips of sugar. But the cranberry coloring reminded me of my father’s marinara sauce, and I fell to the floor.
I used to eat biscuits and gravy while my parents fought beside the cracked granite countertops. Their words made me sad, so sad that I stuffed my stomach full of gravy, hoping that maybe the sticky globs would soak up the sourness of their words. But no substance was strong enough to make our house feel stable, and I was sick of eating my father’s salt-and pepper-colored hairs. I wanted to regurgitate the bread and butter, purge the words I swallowed when my mother said we were never coming back. But I knew no one would care if I spilled, and no one would bother to clean up the mess. My father loves chaos, and my mother is an artist.