This past Saturday, my family went to the Got To Be NC Festival, a giant carnival/mini State Fair for North Carolina to celebrate itself. It was grand! I got to eat fresh produce, and bbq, and my favorite, cotton candy. I got to ride silly rides with my family, and pet goats. There was a deer in the petting zoo, which was temporarily problematic, but there were enough cows/goats to make up for it. It was basically a very fun afternoon, and a perfect homecoming. Of course, it being a carnival, and there being cotton candy, I was humorously reminded of this poem, which I wrote about 6 months ago, which has a very different take on carnivals and family....
Getting Off of The Gravitron
My mama bought me
a ticket to the carnival
even though
she didn’t really want me to stay.
I dragged her with me,
a tiny weight on my balloon wrist,
pulling me down to earth
no matter
how high the Ferris wheel climbed.
I never once looked at the ground
or the brightly colored candy booth
all gold and red and blue.
I stared at the clouds—
swirling, sweet wisps of silk
purple and pink and yellow,
imagining just how delicious it would be
to wrap my jaws around one.
Mama smiled in all the pictures,
happy to be holding my hand,
but my eyes are never on the camera,
never on her face, stuck
directly towards the sky instead.
Still, she bought me a cotton candy
as big and fluffy as they come,
the cone finally grasped
in my sweaty, confident palms.
Oh Mama!
Why didn’t you tell me
as soon as I got that candy
between my fragile little teeth,
it would harden into one small sugar
rock,
and then melt on my tongue,
like it had never been there at all?
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