Fast Food Olalla Levi

It’s so generic, that poem of roses and violets. That first line of an interminable list of loving. I wanted to follow that aesthetic, paint my words that light pink color of blinding affection and love for the world. I wanted to write the “I found someone’s boombox in the rain as flying rocks shattered her window glass” type of love. I wanted to be happy with the weather outside, romanticize a sunray and the aroma of some green grass. I wanted to be simple me in a clean bikini on a well-kept Cape Cod beach. And yet I’ve written five drafts already, listed the things I like, explained what I don’t, and still, I can’t read over the words, print my name on the top of the page, and hand it to you. The phrases bake together like the edges of a steaming marinara pizza as my Microsoft Word indents to the next line. All five drafts smell fresh out of the Domino’s diabetic oven, resembling a nice maple syrup novel, going down quick and easy. Their ingredients categorize them as American fast food consisting of a coating of cheese or sugar, not much else. In short, Literature’s lactose intolerant standard has prevented me from telling you all the things I love. My mom’s cruel critique of my miscellaneous placement of Monterey Jack and cheddar, accenting my E’s and A’s, forces me to rethink and cry out desperately, craving a new recipe as the essay’s 11:59 due date looms over my head. But I want to show you all my favorite things, tell you about how I dream of running through the mountains of Europe singing without sounding like a fraudulent Julie Andrews. I want to tell you that I love weekends. That I love nights with free houses and loud noises and music, small tops and smug faces full of straight teeth, captured by film cameras. I want to write about how complete I feel now that I have found my person, not a kissing at midnight person, but a matching rainbow loom and inside joke validation person. I want to illustrate and idealize my parents and our relationship in earnest. I want to talk about how my favorite season is summer and how I miss spring’s smell and not be ashamed that my wish of waking up tomorrow morning with a pina colada in-hand, sprawled out on some beach in Hawaii, is too common. There’s no need to criticize my dreams and claim that lactose intolerance requires an EpiPen when my grocery list of why I love the world, my steaming unhealthy pizza and amateur cheese dispensary skills are the only way I’m going to make it past another snowstorm this February.