The Aftertaste of Rejection
by Katherine Pagan
How do you tell a Puerto Rican mother you refuse to eat her food? You don’t. Instead, you force a fork full of macarrones con salchichas down your throat until you taste the metal from the fork you used. When your mother isn’t looking, shove a fist full of it into a napkin, let the grease bleed through the paper. Pretend you have a stomach ache. You go to the bathroom and rid yourself of the evidence. Now, you wait. Listen to the sound of your mother’s love as it washes down the toilet; realize this is the only love she knows how to give. Regret it immediately. Actually feel the churn of your intestines as they reject that love. Late at night, when the house is quiet and the woman who cooked the meal is sound asleep, creep into the kitchen. Grab the day-old rotisserie chicken from the plastic bowl in the fridge and tear into the cold rubbery skin. Tear your teeth into its flesh, reach the bone, shove the meat into your mouth before you think about the shame. Hurry. Eat it before the light in the hall flickers from off to on. Eat it until there’s nothing left. Let your bare hand suffocate the chicken bone. Bend over the sink. Let hunger consume you. Then wait. You wait for the guilty bubble in your gut to burst because in a room surrounded by food, you choose to eat a rotisserie chicken over the sink because this is the only version of you that learned how to swallow it all down.