Peach
Aidan Trulove

(Content warning for reader: relationship abuse)

For me,

Poetry is biting into a raw peach. 
Sometimes, it’s over sweet and gooey,
So ripe and pretty and perfumed
That it’s rotted from the inside out. 
I throw it away.

Sometimes, it’s tough, gritty.
Under ripe and impatient. 
It slides pulpally across your tongue, 
Strong, like a torn ligament.
Spit it out, quick!

Sometimes, it’s been grilled,
But then it’s not really raw, now is it?
I call that cheating. 

Other times, it’s sliced up in a can, 
Dripping with juices made to change its nature. 
Better, I think, to buy them fresh. 

Sometimes, the outside is perfect,
Pristine and orange and round, 
Not a bump or blemish to be found,
But then you find out the farmer beats his wife. 
Maybe not, after all.

Sometimes though, sometimes, though, 
It really is what you wanted. 
A peach, not too sweet, not too young, 
Not grilled, or canned, or unethically grown. 
Sometimes a peach is a peach;

Which is when it tastes best.
​

Aidan Trulove is a writer from Austin, Texas. She enjoys experimenting with poetry and prose and has a deep interest in different types of mythology.