Alicia Eler

a poem to my teenage lover

remember remember the ice cream summer

dancing on top of the ocean

eating frosted nuggets of seashell and sand

//

lover lover teenager lover

we spoke in whispers & muted tongues

where frost ended and silver begun

when gold ate lilacs and pink silver tears

i ate your fears

you swallowed me whole

//

i wonder where you went

and when you’ll ever come home

to lick an old wound

to lick a white bone

to eat some ice cream

to careen, scream.

//

we’ll go to the bakery, you & me, 

frolicking in whispers and sparkles and sugar sweet

all photos by alicia eler

A Portal into My Teenage Dream

I wake up in Candyland where I finally meet Katy Perry. Red-and-white striped candycanes float in the sticky sweet air that smells like stale sugar. Katy approaches me wearing a pink fluffy cotton candy dress. Her mouth is permanently stuck in an “O.” She says nothing, only hums at a pitch that gets higher and higher until it turns into a deafening scream. I cover my ears. There is a peppermint candy cane hanging from her right ear. A scoop of strawberry ice cream melts on top of her pink hair. She bends over, drips ice cream onto my left shoe, and then scurries away into the candycane forest. She climbs a Twizzler rope. I see her snow white ass pop out from underneath her effervescent dress. I guess the cotton candy isn’t sticky enough. At the top, she exits onto a blue cotton candy cloud; its texture is much thicker than her pink cotton candy dress. She lies down, removes her cotton candy getup, and poses nude like Manet’s 1862 painting of a whore, Olympia. Then she looks down at me, rainbow sprinkles in her eyes. I shoot whipped cream straight up into the blue sky.

I wake up all groggy and confused. It’s morning. The bright light is streaming in through the windows of a dingy corner convenience store. I am lying on a sticky, caramel-covered floor. My mouth is covered in chocolate syrup. I rub my eyes and look to the left. Endless copies of Seventeen magazine cover the wall. The tired Indian guy behind the desk looks at me. He sports a shirt covered in black licorice stripes.

“You gonna get up and buy some magazines? If not, you leave now,” he says.

I get up and walk toward the magazine rack. I see glossy images of Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, the bubblegum pink hearts with cut-outs of 17-year-old Scotty The Hottie’s face inside them and a blonde who calls herself Scotty’s “perfect girl.” She smooches his freshly shaven cheek. Scotty and Justin and Selena’s smiles are sweet and teasingly sexy—if you think teenagers are sexy.

My hand shakes as I pick up Seventeen magazine. I feel dirty, like I’m looking at grown-up porno magazines Hustler or Playboy. I rip out the teenage dream centerfolds of Justin and Selena and shove them into the back pocket of my sticky blue jeans. I slip out the door and back onto the gingerbread-covered street. I walk into an alley, and lean my sweaty back against a brick wall. Suddenly an ice cream truck speeds toward me. The robotic version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” plays at a hyperfast pace. I see a flash of light, and then everything goes black.

I wake up all wet and sticky on the floor of a white room. It’s the middle of the night. I hear the sharp chirp of crickets outside. Someone must have brought me here after the alley. I look up and I think I see cane sugar dripping from the ceiling, but it might just be a leak I’ve been too lazy to fix. I get up to use the washroom. When I turn on the faucet, I see red Slurpee syrup instead of water. The walls of my white room are covered in posters of Justin, Selena, Katy, Kurt, Snoop Dogg and the gummy bear army. Did I hang those? I walk toward the saintly image of Justin and start peeling the baby blue tape off one of its corners. Behind the poster, I discover the two-foot by three-foot hole. I peer in and see red-and-white stripped candycane shadows everywhere. 

—Alicia Eler