Not the Hi-C Orange Lava Burst version—
But the real deal 100% fruitless
kind they doled out in yellow Igloos on field day or
at your 7th grade dance where they played Stairway
to Heaven last and you hid in the bathroom
because they told Kevin you had a crush on him.
Teachers served it up in mini white waxy cups
and it never was enough, but you didn’t want to come
back for more because you didn’t want to leave
the safety of the bleachers, or the toilet.
And you wonder how your brain is offering up this
taste now and why exactly you’re relishing this dream
because orange drink reminds current version You of
Mucinex or that prenatal blood glucose test
or that colonoscopy prep you stomached a few years back,
and why pre-teen You craved it
and Big Macs and twenty-piece Chicken McNuggets
with four packets of honey—
And nothing will ever taste
this good again because you are the one
who changed as it spills down your chin
and you can’t down it fast enough because you want
to remember how this satisfied you. This. This
and that John Hughes movie
you saw 49 times, you know the one
that was your favorite,
that you laughed at uncontrollably
when you were 12,
that when you saw it again
last year was just not that funny.
And you wonder what this means,
and why you can’t recall the plot
when you used to know every line.