Debt

When I was a kid my cousins said maraschino cherries cause cancer, but I’d still stand in my underwear between the fridge and its door, upending the jar.  The artificially candy-red syrup ran down my body.  It made stripes which combined with the shining refrigerator light to transform me into a sticky raccoon, sickening myself on the entire family’s servings of the cherries and nectar. 

For your selfishness.  I wish you were puking blood all over the place.  For your messes.  For your selfishness, you deserve this.

Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for them.  Everyone knows that, but my parents smoked, and so I smoked, too. 

 For your stupidity, for your rasping throat and your stinking clothes.  For your selfishness and for your stupidity.  Because you can’t be told and because you’re stupid.  Because you do whatever you want to.

I tortured my little brother in all sorts of ways, but one time I remember his hysterics setting a record.  He’d just watched primetime nonfiction TV and I guess discovered what cancer is for the first time.  I laughed at him while he wailed while I pressed my chest against the glowing microwave door, hugging the microwave as it popped our popcorn.  That causes cancer! he cried at me and tried to pull me off.  I laughed at him laughed at him laughed at him, opened the door, and burned myself on our popcorn.         

For your cruelty and for your blood which will carry the burn all over your body and for the way you’re gonna feel it in every part of you.

Now they’re saying red meat, they’re saying processed meat like cold cuts.  It’s cured fish and it’s diet sodas and it’s in the soil.  It’s in the air we breathe.  It’s even in the chemo.

Did you know it’s even in the chemo?  It is.  They’re asking me if tumors eat sugar.

Beaumont Sugar is an essayist, poet, and painter currently based in Anchorage, Alaska. They live with their wife and cat, Penelope and Waffle. They want you to stick up for the little guy, and not to be afraid to bite off more than you can chew. More of their work can be found in The Whorticulturist, and upcoming in Ruminate Magazine. Their visual art can be seen in Tidal Artist Haven’s current zine, and on Instagram @beaumontsugar