Bite of Youth

Joy Alicia Raines

If I had met you in a later life, would I have had more of my youth to bite into? Juicy and sweet, dribbling down my chin.

Untamed and vibrant, would I be more wild than I am? Carving paths with bare hands, dirt under the nails, calluses growing on heart lines. Ebbs and flows of unbridled joy. The mirror, my only witness.

It’s not you. It’s just that I had dreamt of youth as a solitary act. Solitude as a fortress of indelible magic.

And marriage, you can imagine, doesn’t have that same ring.