Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
When I was a kid in school there was an orange candy we ate that had a teaspoon of salt cocooned inside its oval centre.The idea was to suck it slowly, melt its hard outer layer, thinning it until the salty part burst open like a ripened seed pod to shock my taste buds into submission; my senses swinging from one end of the spectrum of candied joy to the opposite end of briny salinity – like I had swum too far from the beach and swallowed a huge gulp of the ocean. The first time I tasted it – egged on by my schoolmates – it was like a power-punch to the mouth, a riot of pain blended with pleasure, and I had to scrunch up my face like a constipated Gollum, to the laughter of my circle of watching friends. Of course, with repeated consumption of those sweets, as in any drug, I never got the same high. Most times I just crunched down straight off and chewed up the hard bits while the salt swirled in my mouth eventually losing its sting, like a morning gargle down a sink. Tonight, I remember that particular sweet and I thought of you in a tempting, tangible way. This must have been the way Adam may have fondled the forbidden fruit, persuaded by Eve to take the second bite, nervous, yet excited and ever curious. But in this dream, the mythical apple is replaced by this orangey, tangy delight. I imagine unwrapping you from both ends, like that sweet of old, shedding you from your translucent, plastic skin, putting you inside my wet and warm mouth and slowly, feeling you unravel from your saccharine outer self, melding with my own moist tongue – the same tongue more known for its dry wit than this slippery salivatory suffusion – as it finds itself going deeper and deeper, stripping layer after layer, until it reaches your salty, acerbic inner core and you erupt with a final volcanic rush. Then I choke – shaken awake from my stupor. Like a sleepwalker blindly tumbling into a swimming pool. A fool and his fantasy separated, leaving both me and my ego cold, cheeks pufferfish-bloated, heart throbbing, mouth gasping for air, but mind holding on to that one last sensory memory of that first time, when sweetness gave in to the saline dropkick in my orifice, and I was heavenly and hellishly concussed, momentarily gripped in your tangerine goodness – and all around me, everyone is smiling, even laughing, while I keel over, suckered by the honey of your breath.
Note:
Paraphrase of Shakespearean quote from Romeo and Juliet: “death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath”
First published in Blotters Jotters 2, Scotland, edited by Fin Hall.
