Stop Playing With Your Food



“Stop playing with your food,” Mom said between clenched teeth.

A million times I heard this, at least.

Pushing food around on my plate, making mountains out of mashed potatoes, slippery with gravy along the roads to the top, spilling aimlessly, growing colder on the spot........

“Stop playing with your food.”

I nicked the top of the mountain, as I obediently scooped a forkful, shoving this wallpaper paste and slimy congealed glue into my mouth.

I glanced at the green beans sitting on my plate, cold and neglected, quietly minding their own business.  As if reading my mind, mom reminded me to eat my vegetables.  Ah, green beans, Lincoln Logs, if I could just prop a few up against the side of this mountain, shoring the river of gravy so I could pour more onto the top, I watched the flow snake between the little logs.  I’ll have to figure out another way to stop that current, a lake is forming in the middle of my plate.

“Stop playing with your food.” 

I picked up a green bean with my fingers, propelled it into my mouth while holding my fork in my other hand, tines useless against the leak the log revealed.  Mom shook her head, and put a bit of salad on my plate.  Her face said, “I’ve failed as a mother.”

I guess cold salad will blend nicely with the rest of my cold food.  But by then I had no interest in eating, I would rather play with my food.

I saw a lettuce leaf become a boat.

A radish, a baby toad.

I pushed them around on the lake, and laughed to see them float.

“Stop playing with your food or no dessert for you.”  Mom said as she brought out a strawberry pie she'd made that morning.

I put down my fork.

I couldn’t eat another bite.

How could I eat a mountain? 

How could I eat a road? 

How could I eat a river, a lake, a boat or a toad? 

How could I tell my mother.....your pie looks like a mound of coagulated blood? 

I was lost to this world of make believe, with gravy the color of mud.