Memory tastes of grape. I thought this as I lay in the bed of my attic room. No, not the fruit that bursts with juice, the one with soft skin that breaks under the teeth. Memory was a grape candy at the bottom of my grandma’s purse — the one that tasted almost blue, the one you can’t even chew on, its hard edges poking against the tender flesh of the cheek, almost drawing blood.
I thought of this, thirsty, as I ran my fingers along the blanket. I thought I could crochet on my own. But memory was also the feeling of a thread running across my leg, its end over my eyes, under the care of my grandma’s hand. It was nothing turning to something as I slept, my head on her lap, her needle weaving loose ends together.
And I must’ve slept again thinking of memory as I had because the harsh thud of music echoing from the walls, the residue of a punk band that always played in the basement, was suddenly not a heavy drum or a bass at all, not even the screech of there over-amplified guitars. And then, memory was an acoustic guitar, gentle and far, inside a locked room. It was my brother and the smell of mint shampoo, glass cleaner, and an old Christmas loaf. It was hands holding each other down and hoping the other wouldn’t cry.
Memory, I knew as I laid in bed, was my body bent over a wooden deck, its wood digging into my stomach and hanging me over the water. It was my arms, holding out a net, and my tired hands waiting for my dad to reel the fish into my grasp. Could memory, too, be a knife? I thought it tasted a lot like meat on the chopping board, the way my father told me not to look away — salt and spice rubbed on its skin and blood.
But then memory was gentle. It was a pit I pretended to fill, and the sand was the smell of my mother’s ocean perfume. It was the quiet of the nights when she would come home late, and it was me hiding inside her closet, my face pressed against her cashmere scarves and pretending she was there. It was a phone ringing without a voice on the other end.
And could memory be the future, and imagining how it would be? Memory felt like chewing on a strawberry shortcake and playing house. It was sitting in front of a computer before knowing how to read and clacking keys because that was what I imagined adult life was like. And then, memory was also the feeling of sand chewed by my teeth, like the dirt that stuck to the grooves of my bike’s tire or the kind that stuck to the juice of popsicle sticks in my hand.
I wake up from this dream of memory, my mouth still dry, but there is no water to quell this thirst, and I reach into the bag of half-eaten candy next to me. And I suck on it slowly, pushing it against my cheek and running my tongue over the spot where the sugar wrinkled my skin. I do it with care because I’m always scared I’m going to run out of them. I close my eyes, almost unsatisfied, thinking it tastes always less and less like I thought it would. But there is something thrilling about coming across these candies, of being handed a wrapped sweet by an unexpected hand, about holding its foil between my fingers before unraveling what’s inside. I open another. I hope it tastes like grapes.
Writer | Camila Massaki Gomes ’27 | cmassakigomes27@amherst.edu
Editor | Alexander Womack ’27 | awomack27@amherst.edu