A bottle of first-hand memories.

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First, prepare your glass bottle.

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Then, pour in a generous spoonful of warm sheep’s milk, fresh and loved like a mother’s colostrum. Mix it with diced strawberries, sweet as a father’s embrace on the first day of school. With your grandma's wooden spoon, whirl.

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Now, add in several fragments of crushed honeycomb, adding more as you like, like that ghost of a half-remembered glimpse of a boy, a girl from the middle-school library. Chocolates come next, growing sweeter by every teaspoon like a child’s first kisses – now spin again, after and after.   

 

Time for some plain yogurt – sour but sweet, just like graduation day – the excitement, the confusion. Right now, your bottle may be a little too sweet – sprinkle in some salt for a reality check, just like that first day at the office (“I love your skirt”).

 

It’s still too sweet – it needs more salt – go on then! Friends of seven years are leaving the room. Your bottle needs more flavor. Perhaps some tears, some vinegar, same when you realize you’re going to die alone? Your mother is knocking on your wall. Why won’t let you her in?

 

Now mix again. And again. And again.

 

And bon appetit.

 

(Today is the youngest you’ll ever be and the youngest you’ve ever been.)