anaphylaxis

He had dusty freckles

and tree bark hair that stuck out behind his ears

with glassy eyes like washed-out perrier bottles,

translucent skin like incandescent light bulbs in the dinosaur lamp in his bedroom.

When he was two his mother gave him a peanut butter cookie and a glass of milk.

An hour later the doctor told her over his hospital bed

that maybe the cookie wasn't such a good idea.

His life was swallowed up by

no no, you can't have that

and

are you sure you can eat that? check the packaging, the packaging!

He liked to joke to his friends that he learned how to read the ingredients list before anything else.

While his mind day-dreamed about chocolate and crackers and tooty-frooty jelly beans, his stomach would grumble like a falling bridge, a jarring reminder of that if he isn't careful, a crumb could send him tumbling into unconsciousness.

Somehow over the years, the

watch the ingredient list

turned into

watch the road

better not try that monster drink

and

stop doing that, you'll overtire yourself

His mother was unable to bear losing him

so she strangled him with her love.

Her love was touching, at first.

a motherly-reminder of keeping him healthy

but soon that affection turned poisonous.

Her helicopter-hovering was trapping him in the mixed dimensions of

don't play football with the others, just sit and watch, i don't want you to get hurt!

and

i don't think you should be hanging out with that peter boy, he seems like he could be trouble.

So, like every hormonal, angst-ridden, parent-suffering normally-obedient upper-middle class suburbia-living boy of the 21st century, he acted out.

This afternoon, he propped himself up on his wrinkly, unmade bed. His knees stuck out as he examined a palm-sized package of M&M's, peanut-filled. His fingers flicked around the paper corners.

An itch already tugged at the back of his nose, but his nervous system was dying to know how they would taste melting on his tongue. The yellow packaging was too jarringly bright, as if they mocked his childhood years smelling of flu medicine and isopropyl from germX, a lifetime of can't touch, can't try. The voices in his mind were rising tremors, urging no no no no no

yes yes yes.

it will be sweet and there will be nothing like it.

you're done letting other people turn you into nothing by telling you you're not allowed to try

so start trying now, for fuck's sake

His fingers hesitated but did not tremble as they tore the goldenrod paper packaging and felt for a colored piece of chocolate, and on second thought, he took two. The walls of his mind were tense, shaking, screaming as he raised the candy to his lips. They fell between his teeth, ripe apples from the tree passing through the branches on their way down to the earth.

Slowly, the seismic noise in his mind calmed and faded to silence.

--Lynn and Christie