Cake
One.
Four eggs. Three cups of sugar. Two hours.
You’re a babbling blob of
gurgles and unsaid syllables.
She watches you restlessly coerce
your fingers together
as she waits for the oven to ping.
Her fingers ache for the ring
she flushed down the toilet last night-
you know nothing of the whimpers
that have kept her awake,
you’ve only learnt to believe that
your scheduled cries are to blame.
She has taken an off from work today
that she already knows she cannot afford-
but this evening is special,
it has been a whole year
since she found someone to call her own.
It is the anniversary of home
having finally found a meaning,
and she wants the night to be just right-
wants your introduction to the universe
be like the fairytales she grew up believing.
The neighbours, they have a lot to say-
“Poor single mother, can’t do it on her own,”
they exclaim as they watch her bustle about the room,
“But boy, she sure can bake.”
Seven.
Four eggs. Three cups of sugar. Two hours.
“My mother makes the best cakes in all
of six counties,” you proudly exclaim
to anyone who bothers to listen.
You’ve grown up a girl who speaks so much-
you’re a hyperactive vending machine of questions
and ideas that haven’t yet been broken by high school physics.
You’ve said more words in this past year than
she has in all her twenty two.
You’re her most trusted critic and her favourite muse.
Everyone else in class is jealous-
you always get the best desserts with lunch.
She makes castles out of vanilla,
she leaves stories on the flour;
she lets you use the icing on weekends.
The rusted oven is your kingdom,
and you are its sole princess.
For you, she slays dragons with her batter.
She’s the superhero in every story you write.
Your whole world is cupcakes and blueberries.
And her.
Sixteen.
Four eggs. Three cups of sugar. Three hours.
There’s an uneaten truffle cake
left untouched on the dinner table-
its candles still unlit.
You’re lighting up a cigarette
on an abandoned parking lot
eleven kilometres from home,
mumbling about how your mom
would definitely kill you if she found out.
You use fewer words now.
You let your breath become smoke rings
before they leave sentences in the air.
He rolls his eyes at you and you’re worrying
that he’s discovering
that you’re still soft-
you’ve spent too long trying to fit a soldier in your bones,
You’d rather be stale than be melting,
so to prove him wrong,
that night, you whisk yourself away.
She spends the night dismantling the microwave-
she knows too well what it feels like
when home runs away from home.
Thirty three.
Three eggs. Two cups of sugar. Six hours.
There’s so much of the recipe that
you still get wrong.
Today, she doesn’t know your name.
You sit by her bedside anyway-
try to fill the hospital air with your stories;
hoping that the softness in your voice
will bring back the twinkle in her eyes;
praying that if you clog the sour creamed room
with all the words you’ve ever known,
you’ll somehow make up for lost time.
You’ve never known of the day the earth decided to devour her
you’ve only been handed yours on a silver platter
“You can borrow mine today,” you whisper
as you carefully place fifty candles on your misshapen cake.
You’ve been blowing out candles underwater all your life,
she has had enough fire in her to keep both of you warm for so long-
but today, your kingdom is burning,
so you leave the candles unlit.
You place a slice on the table,
remember the prescription you were asked to bring,
tip toe your way out and leave the door open-
just like she had, all these years.
