i'll never be a poet

family

mommy, my tongue is on fire!

stop it. put it out now.

but i can't help it! i don't know how to stop!

look at what you've done. you've razed the entire living room, boy. where's your sister? oh dear, oh darling- are you alright? come here, mommy will clean you up. boy, stop this at once. you've grilled the skin off your sister, she's red and raw and blistered and bleeding.

mommy it's not my fault! help! help!!!!!!!

stop talking. here- an iced bar of mango soap on a stick. go to your room and suck on that.

it only smells of mango, mommy, but it tastes so bitter! i've finished the entire bar- look, i can blow out gigantic wavering bubbles and my breath is tropical-fresh, but lava still rolls off my tongue and dribbles down my chin and i can't make it stop!

ouch, my feet- stop speaking. close your mouth, you're melting holes through the marble floor. hey, do you know how expensive that bearskin rug was? you're costing us this entire household, boy.

i'm sorry mommy!

here- take this diamond tongue scraper. i've sharpened it as well.

ow! mommy, i've skinned off all my tastebuds! look, can you see the throbbing red muscle? it's glittering with diamond dust! but my tongue was so fiery that the tongue scraper was blackened into coal and disintegrated through my fingers! look, embers and cinders, they float out of my lips - it looks like i'm having a smoke! and when i close my mouth and breathe out through my nose i look like a dragon heaving out black steam through my nostrils!

your sister is now having a coughing fit, could you hold your breath just for ten minutes so you can stop polluting the air in this house, boy? open the windows. actually, don't, we can't let the neighbours see this.

but mommy, don't we need to call the fire department?

no. they can't know our boy has a dragon tongue.

why not?

because you will strip our family of what we've had and what we are. everything your ancestors and your father has worked hard towards, incinerated in a lightning flash. and i will not let that happen.

but mommy, i've already destroyed the inside of the house! what more can i do?

you will tear down the tapestries lining the outer facade. you will topple over our crest flags. you will melt the glazed polish of the white quartz walls and fill in the fissures with soot instead. you will scorch our grassy porch and dry up our crystal moat.

oh!

oh indeed. you better put out that fire now, or i'll come over myself and gouge that tongue of yours out myself.

mommy please don't! i'm trying! i've drunk buckets of milk and honey and water but nothing is happening!

that's it. come here.

mommy noAAAAGGGHHHLLLLGGLHLLL!!!!

horrid little thing. open your mouth and let me see.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! fhel'th fhiw fiah!

what? how?

i 'u-oh!

open wider. i'm going to take a look inside.

aaaaaaaaaahhhh!

oh. i see.

wha?

it wasn't your tongue, boy. it's your heart. it's a magma core, and it's pumping boiling lava through every vessel. i see bursts of orange fire shooting up, licking the inner walls of your bronchiole. gooey red bubbles pop and oh my, the sulfur, it stings. boy- i can't reach down into your chest to take your heart out. this requires surgical action.

mommy if you 'aegh ou' mah hear'h, will i hie?

not if we replace it.

wih wha?

with a mechanical one.

how bou' mah hongue?

we'll give you a tongue made of silver. now help me put out this mess.

how ih mah hifher?

your sister is fine. she'll live. from today onwards she shall be bathed in strawberry milk and scrubbed with sugar crystals and moisturised with honey. she will be fed flowers, soft pink petals will line her throat and nectar will glaze her tongue so she will never turn out like you.

haghoo mommy!

you're welcome.

(i don't like this one)