Storyglossia Issue 33, April 2009.

Snatches

by Ethel Rohan

 

I.   Self-destructive

 

 

I suck on the dark raspberry chocolate square and think that if chocolate was a coat and I lived in Siberia and the shelter of that chocolate coat was the only thing keeping me from death I'd still eat that chocolate coat, nibble away at it, nip nip nip, inch by inch by inch, fighting but failing and taking in and sucking and resting on my tongue until I couldn't stand the pleasure pain any longer and then swallowing and rolling my too big eyes, and eating eating eating, my stomach filling, blood heating, and skin pimpling under the great pelt of night sky that covers us all, that torments us with stars and maddens us with the moon. Almost naked and crazed with need and longing and the addict's recklessness even in dreams I'd eat the last of that dark raspberry chocolate coat even during the freezing beyond freezing nights when I'd feel lonely and icy and eaten alive and that dark raspberry chocolate mantle was my comfort and my savior and my ultimate undoing.

 

 

II.   Encore

 

 

I suck on the dark cherry chocolate and think that if chocolate could see he'd have measured my countless changes over the years, he a camera that captured what happened to my outsides and my insides. It'd be so much harder to eat chocolate with eyes, feeling it watching me while I lifted and inserted and chewed and swallowed and digested and expelled. Right as I'm about to take him in, I'd avoid his burning eyes and he'd stare me down saying think think think do you really want to do this? do you really want me? do you really want what I can do to you? I'd eat while decrying the end of the good old days when chocolate and I were blissfully blind together and we didn't give a damn about who was seeing and who was watching and who was thinking because it was all about doing and feeling and pleasure and to hell with the fallout and getting amorous and amnesic again and doing it all over and over because back then the song of the fat lady meant nothing but a merry merry interlude.

 

 

III.   Dueling Entities

 

 

I suck on the mint chocolate square and think that if chocolate could talk we'd fight fight fight. The chocolate would accuse me of being needy and demanding and insatiable and I'd scream back that it just didn't know how to be in a relationship and what's more didn't it know that it was made to be consumed for other people's pleasure and their entertainment and fulfillment and damnation. I owned it, I'd tell that sorry square. I'd bought it and there was plenty more where it had come from and I could do whatever I wanted with it. I could eat it, spit it, toss it, cut it, melt it, bake it. I could dance on it, with it, and to it. We could fight or make-up or be friends or hate each other's guts. I got to call all the shots, I'd say smug smug smug. I had the power. And then that square would stand upright, and do a dance similar to what certain women did on poles and he'd say are you sure? Oh I'm sure, I'd say, you don't control me: you're man-made, for our amusement and consumption and I'm going to eat you alive. But even as I swallowed that mint chocolate square it was laughing laughing laughing because it knew.

 

 

IV.   The One

 

 

I suck on the chocolate peanut butter pattie and think that if chocolate could move it would run run run away from me. This chocolate peanut butter pattie would have sprung from the fridge at the sight of me, tumbling over my shoulder and bolting out of the house, and down the street. I'd chase it, shouting after it, ordering it to come back, but you can buy chocolate and eat chocolate and do all sorts of various things to chocolate but you cannot make chocolate do tricks. You cannot make chocolate obey. I'd pursue that chocolate peanut butter pattie all over the city, clamoring on and off buses after it, into taxis and through office buildings, shouting at everyone I passed to make that chocolate peanut butter pattie stop, make it sit, make it offer itself before I'd eat it right off the carpeted floor. But there's no catching the chocolate, there's no making it or anyone else listen to me or do what I say. There's only the chocolate run run running and me chase chase chasing while know know knowing that I can just go into a store and buy another chocolate peanut butter pattie but it's that chocolate peanut butter pattie I want. The one that doesn't want me.

 

 

V.   Self-Love

 

 

I suck on the milk orange chocolate ball and think that if chocolate could make love and I'd lived a life where my sex hadn't been frightened out of me that I'd lick that chocolate ball until it felt wet and slippery and velvety between my thumb and finger and then in front of the mirror I'd take the ball into my mouth and dance it on my tongue, watching the steaming ball squirm, panting for me to do bad things to it and I'd say not just yet selfish and take that milk orange chocolate ball right back off my wet tongue and rub it over my hard as life nipples and between my long with need labia rolling it over and over my singing clitoris in maddening slow circles until I felt sure I'd saturated that chocolate ball with my sex and then taking it back onto my tongue and tasting myself, melting the last of the milk orange chocolate ball in the hot cave of my mouth and afterwards sucking its tantalizing traces from my teeth and licking my heady lips and singing yes yes yes praise be, glory glory be.

Copyright©2009 Ethel Rohan

Ethel Rohan was Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland and now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, CA. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from over thirty online and print journals including Cantaraville, Word Riot, Identity Theory, Mud Luscious, Clockwise Cat, and DecomP: A Literary Magazine. She is a brazen chocoholic. Her blog is www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.