Flavor of the Weak
I remember you ate cherries. All the time, too, not just on whipped cream. I remember I'd come over and you would be laying there, eating cherries. Sometimes straight out of the bag. Sometimes there was a bowl. I can see the small stains in your off-white sheets from where your fingers absently rubbed, leaving dark red smudges. We'd go to the grocery story, when we were both in the same city, and you would never buy cherries. Or any fruits or vegetables. ("Are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?" to which you responded, "A vegetable born in a fruit's body.") I know you buy locally. There's a small market you buy everything from. (You pretentious son of a bitch.) They were real cherries, too. Deep red and almost heart-shaped. Never the dyed red ones, the maraschino cherries. When we'd go out and get shakes, though, at three in the morning, you'd eat the faux bright red cherry on top of mine when I offered it to you. Yours had pits. That's why I never ate them. You would hold it by the stem and eat the cherry, chewing for a few moments and then producing a small, dark pit. I've seen you eat a mango, though, don't think I haven't. The cherries remind me of you eating a mango, sucking at the flesh until it's just the pit in your hands and juice all over you.
I can't see a cherry without thinking of you. (You bastard.)