Milk & Honey
I was a sick kid for a while.
Metal scraped against metal
And this low I could feel the radiating heat of the stove
Against my fever-chilled face,
Smell the denim of my father's jeans
And the leather tag on the back
As though he hadn't worn them hundreds of times.
.
The burning ache in my chest
Grown from weeks of coughing
Had turned into a rampaging wildfire complete
With embers tickling my throat and smoke turning my eyes teary.
Nothing at all would fix it, soothe it, let me rest.
Not the heavy drugs, poisons, or opioid cough medication.
.
It was a clawing plea,
Tugging on belt loops after school
And sitting in the dark kitchen to the scratch, scratch, scratch
Of the whisk fixing up the cure.
My milk and honey.
The snack of dreams.
.
Soft on my scratched throat,
It trailed into my belly and bloomed,
Radiating warmth like the summer sun
Through my entire chest,
Through my thoughts
Until I was full, full, full of happiness again.
.
Young and tired, woken up again by a fit,
And there it was...
The scratch of the whisk following the click of the stove,
The soft pad of feet down the stairs.
Hush whispers of a French lullaby, a second mother tongue,
The language of my dreams.
.
The language of milk and honey, lait et miel,
Is warm on my tongue and deadly sweet,
The kind of saccharine taste that drips off sunsets
And floats across warm summer showers.
The kind that wrapped arms around me,
Stopped the barking cough from continuing.
.
Lait et miel, milk and honey.
I can smell toothpaste, the mouthwash,
The imperfectly removed cologne from my father
And deep in my chest beside the soothed cough
I can feel the satisfaction of safety,
The innate knowledge that this will all be okay.
.
Because fear is just a passing pang of hunger,
A starved breath that will eventually be satisfied.
It was never about the sugar or the soothed sickness,
But the promise of the warm, unending care of a father.
It was always about the compassion in his eyes
And the soft milk and honey dreams I fell asleep to.
.
Elementary school, junior high, high school,
The cough went away
But the sweet decadence of that milk and honey,
The sound of the metal whisk
And the smell of denim and leather
Never faded, never dulled, never died.
.
I reached and reached and reached
For those memories
And swallowed them whole,
Ingesting and remembering entire seasons of my life
And inhaling the best bits and pieces
Of that precious, childhood love.
About the Creator
Silver Serpent Books
Writer. Interested in all the rocks people have forgotten to turn over. There are whole worlds under there, you know. Dark ones too, even better.
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Comments (3)
You really struck a marvelous chord with the strong sensory imagery (loved the scratching of the whisk) and nostalgia for holistic remedy!
Got me a little choked up myself over here 🥲❤️
This is so beautifully tactile! I feel this way about shower steam and the smell of vicks vaporub, after my bout with the whooping cough.