Chocolate, proper chocolate comes precariously positioned in premium packaging. As it's distributed, I attribute your feelings towards me based on the cocoa content of the dessert; 35%, that'll do. When Elizabeth Bishop said, “somebody loves us all”, she wasn't thinking of the strawberry delight disregarded with the box. As we converse, I make a point of scoffing the chocolates into my mouth. Bon bon dust escapes my lips, I lick treacle from the cracks of my hang nails. I devour the selection in less time than you spent assessing the situation in the confectionary aisle. The little glossy menu stares at me meekly from atop the felt-grape coloured tissue wrapping. I use it to wipe the corners of my mouth. I don't do well conversing with these kinds of distractions. I don't appreciate the gesture. I don't appreciate the “show don't tell.” You stare at me with a painters eye for perspective and hold your jaw in your hand. Forked appendages that once combed through my hair. When I was seven I refused to identify as ginger so I told everyone my hair was the colour of jam. And you're a bitter fucker. There's nothing fruity or syrupy about you at all at all at all. Maybe that's why we work, because I can't stand the sight of myself but you can. Call me a strawberry delight. “You missed one” you muse, pointing, with a sneer like a bad aftertaste. In the corner of the chocolate graveyard, In an occupied plot is a fromage fraise, red ribboned pearl. It has a rose petalled pale interior. This is revealed to me from under the tongue, of my shoe.
Caoilfhin Foley is a writer from Ireland. She has been published in the independent, Swerve Magazine, Ethereal magazine among others