Sun-Warmed Fruit

I love two things that I wish I could have more of: the sun and raw fruit.

Too much sun, and my skin will crackle and flake and will be decorated with heat rashes. It will turn to scales before I shed the way reptiles do. Too much fruit, and my tongue will swell, my lips will burn, my throat will close and suddenly I must remember how to breathe again.

I don't believe I'd die more than I would be severely uncomfortable. I am either daring or suicidal enough to walk the fine line of uncertainty that is being a shameful hedonist and suffering anaphylaxis shock. Part of me hopes I will live another day to break more rules.

I am led to believe I am defiant by nature. I exist to make the world squirm and seize in the palm my hands. If what my mother says is true, if I am to burn for simply being alive, then I hope to leave this world with my chin raised to the sky and seek belonging amongst the stars. I will burn with them, and I will be a supernova of contradictions, as we all are. I do not need anyone to remember me as a good woman. I have learned that I am invisible to the world and I prefer to keep it that way.

I take a moment to soak in my surroundings and I think of my ordinary life up until this point. I could die in just a couple of hours. I'm still deciding if it's worth the trouble. I wondered if the sun would make me unrecognizable by the time anyone found me. What a story that would be: "Missing plum-skinned enigma found dead: burned to crisp in the nature center."

Another part of me hoped I would be long forgotten, that enough time will have passed and would show itself as wildflowers in the cracks and crevices of my bones. You will not see me, but you will know someone was here. I imagined my spirit will blanket this corner of the world, the soles of my feet will turn to roots and will have embedded themselves in the soil. You will feel my kiss in the sunlight and you will hear my agony blend with the deafening screams of summer time cicadas. There will be no note. There will be no explanation. Just a very, very unfortunate circumstance.

I can feel the sun already beginning to make my skin itch. I don't have a lot of time. I look down at the arrangement displayed in front of me: a basket of fruits I should not eat, a bottle of red wine I should not drink and a pack of CBD cigarettes I probably should not smoke. There are plenty of things in the world I should not do, but what do I care anymore? This entire planet is our Garden of Eden and there is so much forbidden fruit ready to be consumed, if it hasn't been already. As far as I am concerned, everyone is to burn along with me. Until then, should my body allow it, I will eat like a god. I deserve that much in a world as suffocating as Gaia.

I let the sun warm my fruit before I devour it all. I light a cigarette and drink my wine straight from the bottle, send a quick prayer to whatever God willing to listen, and the rest comes in waves.

Should this be my last meal, I do hope this guilty pleasure is something worth dying for.