A bruised peach. “Perfectly imperfect,” says a dark haired woman as she presses it into my outstretched palm from across the fold out table, an Eden of multicolored corn in suits of silk and fading green, plump and misshapen red tomatoes, and extravagant heads of lettuce. We share it on a bench under a tree. I bite first, showing you with my fingers the bright orange fruit, glistening with juicy sweetness. You bury your whole face into its flesh, grasping its shedding layers with your gums. Upon resurfacing, you squint your eyes, nose crinkling in delight, chin jutting out and smile revealing your sinking city of milk teeth, a chunk of peach stuck between them. When we return home, you shovel handfuls of microwavable rice into your mouth. I yell when you smear yogurt with your bare hands across the fake hardwood. At night, I lay in bed and promise myself all the ways I will be better. What does a stranger see? Do they see the moments of panic when I think about the future, the years looming ahead like a giant, or an infinite staircase of responsibility? Do they recognize the impulse to swat my son’s thigh when his toenails dig into my skin just so? Can they tell how many promises I’ve thrown out the window? I’m tossing them every day, discarding them like peels of a lemon. Do they know isolation so comforting? Every person feels like a rock in my shoe. Some are only a pebble, but still change the way I move. 

A bruised peach.
The flesh dissolving like rot
on your tongue.