Apples

Abstract

137 NATALIE WANG Apples  i have a mother as beautiful as an apple blossom. people used to pinch my cheeks saying that the apple never falls far from the tree and as a child i was the apple of my parents’ eyes always leaving apples on the teacher’s desk and teachers said i was a good apple while my grandmother taught me to peel apples with a knife parting skin leaving flesh whole so we could make pie and as i grew up people said i was becoming apple shaped too much apple pie they said so i eat an apple for breakfast each morning and nothing else hoping that it is enough to keep the doctors away wishing for powdery white flesh and watching my apple cheeks cave in. i dreamt of golden orbs falling from the sky and people running across oceans to chase them. i drew the fruit on my arms with black sharpie. when no one noticed i used the fruit knife parting skin from flesh but my mother said to stop. that i was becoming a bad apple. my father asked why i had to always be so difficult and shouted at my mother that the apple never fell far from the tree. good apples know that it is stupid to count your mouthfuls but i can only wish i was flower and not fruit. that i would brown and fall to pieces long before i became food for worms. ...