Joy is bergamot and lavender, scents on the breeze or in my tea. Peace is the quiet heart of sweet potatoes salted and buttered, comforting and health-giving, a heavenly prism. Love is a garden salad bursting with fruit: strawberries, blueberries, diced apples, banana. God is a marshmallow on a stick: held to the fire but still good for it, and faith is taffy, stretchy and sweet. Fuck is 60% dark chocolate, strong pleasure leaving me satisfied, at least for a while. War is the charred burger slid between grill slats and left to harden amid scavenger ants and flies. Marriage is oil with vinegar, tangy, slick and messy, desirable through the sheer hunger of living. A sunset is rainbow sherbet, and a sunrise is cool melon. Cunt is milk chocolate, lickable and part of the body triumphant; some of us are made of milk chocolate. Nirvana is caramel. Hell, any animal killed cruelly and sold as meat. Anger is raw jalapenos, seeds and all, the sting biting every cell of every bit of mouth and tongue and throat and esophagus, and off-loading its fire through the ass. Give me a grape every time I speak the truth, a raisin for each lie. When I fear, spiny artichoke stings my lips, and when I worry, a pickle. A cock, rude, hard word tasting like sea salt potato chips, and never just one. This earth is a feast, a table strewn with goodness, and beauty occupies the gravy dish. Birds are desserts of softness and sugar, meringue or bread pudding, tiramisu. Bring me understanding, a bowl of Cheerios in sweet fresh milk, and wisdom, someone’s painstakingly homemade kombucha. Judgment, bias, bigotry, unkindness, injustice are the rotting leftovers only good when tossed out the back door for the wandering skunk. Simple words, letters strung together, perceived to mean something strong or weak or tasteful or horrible, things bitter, sweet, oily, salty. Only simple words.