Pomegranates

My mother always told me that dangerous things lurked in the forest beyond our fields and gardens. Stay to the path, she told me. But the paths and fields were so orderly and neat and exact. There wasn’t any spontaneity or unplanned bits of beauty. Everything was organized in neat rows—wheat, corn, daughter.

Even the gardens were planned and sterile, beautiful to look at but forced. There were no exciting explosions of color, no unexpected tangles or surprising clusters. There was nothing natural or easy about any of it. Everything, the fields and the flowers and my life, felt constructed with no thought to our natural states. We would be forced into a prescribed shape and any part of us that didn’t fit, that was too much, would be pruned away. It felt like there was a hand at my neck strangling me into submission. I could conform or I could die, and conforming would be its own form of death.

And so, I escaped whenever I could, wild as a weed. Never for long, only a few minutes or maybe an hour, where I basked in the chaotic beauty of true nature. I never went much past the edge of the forest into the dark, loamy depths that called to me in soft whispers and complex perfumes. I was a good girl and only disobeyed a little, just enough to escape the restricting confines of my life and be somewhere I could finally shuck off the constraints I’d been forced to wear like a too-small dress and finally take a deep breath.

It didn’t matter that I would stare into the forest and lose myself, that a small part of me wanted desperately to walk deeper into the dark and surrender to whatever I found. No, I was a good girl and I only disobeyed a little and never strayed far enough to be in any danger. Only a few feet into the forest, maybe twenty, where I could drink in the darkness and feel a secret thrill run up through my feet like roots in parched soil. I was naïve, or perhaps I knew precisely what I was doing. Why else would I have constantly run to the siren call of the forest, thick with danger and dark as midnight, where mushrooms grew and fed on death and decay?

But none of that mattered now. Not after he had emerged from the dark, beautiful as a fallen angel, and dragged me down into the depths with him. I hadn’t wanted that. It didn’t matter that his hand at my throat felt less like being strangled and more like being grounded. I would never agree to be taken away from the sun and flowers and plants I loved so much. Here, nothing grows except my longing for home.

I never thought I’d miss the sun. The very concept of being unable to feel its golden rays warm my skin would have been ludicrous just two short days ago. At least, I think it’s been that long. It’s hard to tell without anything to mark the passing of time.

I’m not held captive or locked in this room, but I am shackled by circumstance. Where would I go? I can’t get back by myself, the way is too treacherous. There’s nothing for me to do but sit and try to remember the sun-kissed warmth of the afternoon and the heady scent of roses. The memories are there, dancing at the corners of my memory but as elusive as fireflies.

I try to hold on to who I was with all my might because every moment I’m here I feel myself changing. He told me I’m not confined, I’m free to be who I truly am, not who others want me to be. And the part of me that whispered darkness in my ear is growing wild with thick vines that threaten to wrap around and suffocate the girl I once was. Perhaps who I thought I was is a false flower, but that doesn’t mean I like feeling as if my heart is full of brambles.

I asked him why he took me and he gave me a look of adoration. He told me I’m a spring breeze, the promise of renewed bounty after a cold, hard winter. He told me he didn’t pluck me and place me in a vase to slowly watch me shrivel and die. No, he lovingly dug me up from the earth and transplanted me here so I could grow and thrive in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. He told me I’d been stunted at home and with my mother, who tried to control me for fear of what I would become if she left me unchecked. He told me I was being forced into the shape of a pretty topiary when I had the potential of an oak tree inside me just waiting for the moment I could grow tall and strong and able to withstand the harshest winds. He told me he doesn’t want me, he needs me—he isn’t confining me, he’s setting me free. The dark part of me preened.

My stomach rumbles and I stare at the plate in front of me, still untouched after hours. The chocolate cake is as dark as fresh tilled earth, as moist as the forest floor beneath a blanket of leaves. Pomegranate seeds spill out from the center and fall from the top with garnet-red flesh like drops of blood. I’m so hungry, and that dark part of me is urging me to indulge, to truly feed my desires for once in my life.

I can feel my will fading as every inhale brings the scent of deep, nutty chocolate and sharp, bright pomegranate. The perfect marriage of dark and light. Surely a small taste couldn’t hurt. Just enough to quell my hunger. No more than six bites, I promise myself. What’s the worst that could happen?

I pick up a pomegranate seed and place it on my tongue. I test its shape, the chocolate from the cake already melting, then bite down. The tart sweetness mixes with the bitter chocolate and fills my mouth. With just one seed something takes root inside me and I’m suddenly ravenous. I lift the cake to my mouth in greedy handfuls with no thoughts to manners or refinement. I feel parts of myself finally unfurl and fill the space inside me. Pomegranate juice runs down my hands and forearms like blood and I smile with teeth sharp as thorns, the girl I was fading into distant memory.