Sugar

by Essence Bryant, literary editor

Aching for that bittersweet first bite

to ruin your appetite.

Justify it as

“loves a feast, my name’s heart disease”,

but disengage the teenage phase of

falling so hard, you break your rock candy heart

or tell a lie.

High in cotton candy skies

with that

fluorescent adolescence

that turned your sweet heart black,

so that

cavities flow from the molten sugar that runs through your veins

turning them black and blue

but the sugar rush is over

and left you high and dry

your wings turned to a cherry-flavored dust

and crippled with the residual sugary syrup

you drink til you drown

never to be insulated with the insulin

that kept you sound.