She sits in the dining room,
On her break,
Silently reminiscing
As she sits there sipping
A vanilla milkshake.
But she's not all there.
You can't see what she sees
With those distant blue eyes,
Sucking on the blue straw
And stirring the blue spoon.
She's having what they call
a flashback
Triggered by her senses.
Vanilla milkshake,
partway melted,
lukewarm,
That smooth and creamy flavor
On a dusty evening in the summertime
Daddy took us on a drive
just to go somewhere
And stopped at McDonald's for a treat.
Back then, Diana's favorite flavor
Wasn't vanilla--it was strawberry
Little sister thought she had to get
Whatever Diana got.
Silly Bethany
Daddy told her different,
and instead of strawberry,
she chose vanilla.
But of course,
being sisters and all,
They traded sips of shake
lumpy ice cream
clogging the straw,
partway melted,
And Diana decided that maybe
Just maybe,
She liked vanilla better.
From then on,
her favorite flavor was vanilla.
Of course, now time has gone by,
And Bethany gets chocolate now,
Not vanilla.
She doesn't try to be like Diana anymore;
She's independent now,
While Diana is the one left behind.
Still, Diana sticks by her favorite,
the one her little sister chose
Even though her little sister has moved on,
and they're no longer the best of friends,
the taste of innocence
Still lingers in that partway melted,
lukewarm,
vanilla milkshake.
YOU ARE READING
The Art of Confusion
PuisiDiana Miller is schizophrenic...or at least she thinks so. She has never been clinically diagnosed because her father believes that mental illness is demon possession, and she knows he would never take her to a psychiatrist. To cope with her inner c...
