The culinary expertise of 9 year olds 
and using string cheese to tie up your hair
in pig tails.

My mouth became a microwave oven.
We all stood too close to 
watch my teeth mutate--
morph into the stale marshmallows on
a dinner plate-- peel sticky 
from your thumbs-- wipe everything 
but blood on your
thighs--those stuffed bratwurst jeans--
your thighs you
haven't truly noticed yet--
They are only pant-seams and places
where you hide peanut butter and
marshmallows-- 
My mouth became steam-- a skillet--
a stove top-- belt loop tug-- the melted
butter into your own recipe for soup-- 
Did you ever
eat something like a 9-year-old?
You must have. We all did.
We used our mouths to cure curiosity
and now we fill them with kisses 
that still don't taste as good
as microwave marshmallows--
Because everything tastes good
in a 9-year-old fist full
baked chips-- forget
about the thighs--
I wore my hair in pig tails
tied up with low fat string cheese
I knew I was sublime-- god-like--
Your body was nothing but a tool
the alarm of your 
microwave mouth-- warm
the morning in a bath of butter--
This is when we learned about butter
and that the butter wasn't actually 
butter-- it was margarine 
most of what I taste 
is only a memory of when 
I was 9 because as far as I know
butter is only a myth that
we invented to stick
cinnamon and sugar to potato rolls
at midnight-- and string cheese
is good for pig tails because
it melts to make pizza 
if you roll it inside
a tortilla with canned tomato
sauce-- splash the sides of
your microwave mouth with marsh-
mallow-- or blood-- or canned 
tomato sauce--

Who was it that told you 
where your thighs were located?
Did they eat the string
cheese from your pig tails
to tell you that you had been
fat all these years-- that
no one was proud of boxed brownies 
and microwave mouth marshmallows?
Did they tell you no one
who was sublime had pigtails?
Did they wash your sticky 
thumbs with salad leaves?
Did they tell you that
you had butter stains 
on your jeans?
Teach my mouth to be 9.

I don't have enough hair
for pigtails anymore.