november colors

inside this rotting grapefruit are seeds that hope for a future, to become trees.
the beat of my heart, the workings of my mind, the air in my lungs, the tissue of my aching muscles feel like this rotten fruit.
i should listen to wise voices, some asking me to check where the rot attacked the fruit, make its autopsy, remember that i created the conditions for this disintegration, i placed the grapefruits in a plastic bag, and instead of storing them into the fridge, i forgot them in a corner in the hot kitchen.
i should listen to kind, scared voices, my eighty-years-old mother begging me to say nothing. ‘don't get involved, listen to me, daughter, the phone lines have ears. stop talking about him.’ ‘but how can i? this is not your totalitarian romania, mother. i came here to be safe.’ ‘you are safe,’ mother snaps. ‘you are millions of people. it's gonna be alright.’
people are in the street, protesting. he barricaded himself in his tower, built a wall of sacks of sand. i don't have strength to join them. i've been through enough civil unrest at the fall of communism. i can't i can't i can't live through four years of shame, disgrace, the president hurled on us the laughing stock of nations, war monger bigot.
i ask mother tips about baking a traditional romanian cake, cozonac. she applauds my interest. this is what we should be conversing about over skype, not elections.
so, woman go back to your kitchen, oven of life you are.
the rotten grapefruit goes to the compost pile. i still have two healthy glowing yellows. i zip them up separately and send them to the fridge hibernation. can't i do that too? wake me up in four years? no, i can't. rot would eat my entire pantry.
must stay vigilant.