The Palace of the Sugar Demon
I remember sitting still on the floor of a room that felt like a paused breeze. Hips elevated above knees on black cushions. Dozens of people breathing around me, eyes half open, thinking of non thought. I knew all the intricacies of the wall before me, and the shifting of the floorboards was as loud as an orchestra. I wasn’t supposed to close my eyes, but I regularly did. Pictures flashed through my mind, like memories that were not my own. A newspaper unfolded on a table, a yellow cloth hanging, a car, an apple. The images came fluidly, cycling fountain-like. Sometimes it was so overwhelming. Until one day, I stopped watching the images and started watching the motion of them. Arriving in the center of my thought, pooling out to the periphery, and twisting back behind, an infinity loop. The source of the spiraling became vivid, black as a pupil. When I opened my eyes, the spot of ignition was not void. There was a moth right there on the wall before me, as if it had flown out of my own mind.
Before I moved to the monastery, I was already curious about presence. The people I was closest to told me I moved too slowly. I started baking bread at my parent’s home, and the whole experience was bright and clear. Going to Shaw’s Market to buy the cheapest bleached flour on the bottom shelf. Squatting to pick it up. Warm ache in my hips from squatting. Slick dust of lost flour on the tile flour. Getting the ingredients together in the kitchen. Tapping a stainless steel bowl on the table. Aiding the union of flour and water through sticky touch. Kneading and resting, watching each new form of the dough as if it was a unique sculpture.
I was in it. I was in life. My eyes were open and hungry like a long exposure photograph.
But then, without quite noticing, something stale grew up inside me. Anne Sexton said it best:
This grief is an identity crisis. It is literally unbearable. It is a built-up plaque in my heart. I am more sad than I’ve ever been but I have not cried in a long time. I crave the passage of time.
Dull acceptance of cruelty. Retreating into the paradise of my imagination. Deep down I know that it makes sense to not be present for all of this.
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In the kitchen of the monastery, there’s a sign that reads, “Welcome to the Palace of the Sugar Demon.” This sign always made me laugh. I was surprised by how many cookies I was asked to make there.
But it makes sense, people often cling to sugar when they rid themselves of more destructive addictions. A friend at the monastery intuitively asked me to join AA, without knowing my history of getting black-out drunk.
I have eaten ice cream everyday this summer. It is an incredible pacifier.
I eat ice cream when I feel ignored. When I feel accommodating, invisible, shell of a person, friendly. I eat ice cream on some ungovernable new dimension. I eat ice cream and become unconscious. Weeping hot fudge fugue. I eat ice cream when I don’t even want it.
Welcome to the Palace of the Sugar Demon. It is a palace. The infrastructure of the palace is imperial, and good for no one. After a while the luxury of sweetness is nothing but sickening. And then what?
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Last night, I was eating ice cream on the back porch with friends. The landlord recently asked me to move out. I feel insecure in every way. My friends and I let the carton of ice cream melt more than I normally would, because we were lost in conversation. We scooped it into cones. It was cold, sweet, and creamy. We had the porch light on. We sprayed bug spray onto our skin and clothes. I looked to my left, to the light bulb above the door. Illuminated there, swarming, were dozens of frantic moths.