satyrnus

[satyrnus]

[satyrnus]

[satyrnus]

I’m allergic to most fruits.

My working theory is that it’s something to do with the naturally occurring glucose, because when I cook it and whatever little enzymes break down, I can eat them just fine.

But I grow strawberries and blueberries in clay pots in my back yard.

And I grow peas in my veggie patch, and my mother grows tomatoes right beside them.

At soccer games, moms bring orange slices for their little athletes.

Every trend online right now will tell you to eat some fruit, grapes and melon sliced up and strawberries and whatever “superfruit” they’ve decided on this week.

When I was a little girl, my mother took me blueberry picking at a farm nearby. I ate them as I went along, some of them were firm and sour, but some were soft and sweet. It was a gamble, but I loved it. All of them made me feel like my mouth was on fire.

I’m allergic to most fruits.

I don’t really bother with apples anymore. I used to like cutting them up and dipping them in peanut butter, I did the same with bananas. But I’m allergic, and eventually that feeling of fire on my tongue got too annoying to justify that momentary bliss.

The first time I tried vodka, I was fourteen. Ever since I was little I remember having this obsession with alcoholism. Something about it seemed so palpable to me, misery in a way that ate away at you and killed you ever so slowly.

If I’m offered a selection, I’ll choose whiskey. Doesn’t matter what brand. I tried Lagavulin once, when I was dating a girl that bought me a jar of maraschino cherries on our fourth date. It tasted like smoke.

I thought that defeated the purpose. Whiskey should taste like fire on your tongue.

I’m allergic to most fruits, and if you give me the opportunity, I’ll give myself alcohol poisoning on a whim.

My friends and I poke fun at my allergy to fruits. I’ll eat a bunch of grapes and then gripe about how my mouth is burning, I’ll share a tangerine with my sister on a hike and whine about the itch in my cheeks and the sticky juice on my fingers. It’s a running joke, and we all laugh.

My friends don’t like that I drink alone.

I eat fruit when I’m alone, too. When there’s no one around to laugh at the funny joke. I like oranges most of all, I think. They hurt the worst out of the bunch, but that’s not why I eat them. That’s not why I drink either, at least I don’t think.

There’s something intoxicating about pleasure and pain being twisted together so closely.

I love oranges. And I love whiskey.

I think one day I’d like to eat oranges without that burning pain that comes with it. There are treatments, out there, they take months and months, but some smart people out there have figured out a way to make an allergy go away.

But that takes a lot of work.

And besides, I’ve always been allergic to fruit. I know the pain that comes with it is because of something inside of me, it isn’t the fault of the fruit.

I’m allergic to most fruits, and I’m having a hard time deciding if I should just stop eating fruits all together, or if a hangover is okay once in a while.

I don’t know. I think when you learn from the second you’re born that pleasure can only come with pain, you learn to treasure the feeling of fire on your tongue.