I miss the days where candy was my goal,
when the novelty of red colored sugar
inside of a painted blue candy shell
held my fascination,
the days where I would steal money
just to go to the store
to buy boxes of Lemonheads
and Boston Baked Beans.
I used to think the natives of Boston
had the best candies in the world,
that Willy Wonka was a god to children.
My nights would be filled with dreams
of boxes of Bazooka Joe bubble gum
and Everlasting Gobstoppers
that I had to hide in the backyard,
because I wasn’t supposed to have that candy.
I had no money to buy it
and the neighbor kid took the fall
for the missing $20 that the babysitter
failed to pin on me.
I remember riding home from the store,
one hand gripping the handlebar
the other shoving a Rocky Road into my mouth
afraid to get home with it not gone,
or that my mother would smell the chocolate
on my breath.
There was happiness in those moments,
innocence that came to ruin
once the candy was gone
and the sugar high had left.
Wrappers littered the streets
as my path to and from the store
became marked with my ill gotten goods.
The Jolly Ranchers and Bubble Tape
were gone long before the guilt,
and the regret of the cost
someone had to pay for my candy.
Even the novelty of artificial flavors of;
Orange,
Banana,
Strawberry,
Cherry and Lime
in their anatomically correct
fruit shapes
poured from a Runts box and mixed
with the chaotic mutant distortions
that we called Nerds
proved that God had no place in those moments.
And that parents were to be hidden from,
my job was to deceive them
to protect the happiness of my colored sugar
because adults were only determined
to take it all away from me,
happiness being their domain,
their possession to pass out as they saw fit.
Candyland
