Where Are We Going - Maggie Fulmer

I’m sitting in a truck bed full of cherries. It’s August and we’re on Main Street and I don’t like cherries. In the dream I’m not having, your sentences elongate like pulled salt water taffy and my clothes are not stained. Cherry stems are not stuck in my hair. I won’t find three in my shoe next week.

I don’t like cherries, but I love summer. The long and short of it. I see a man at the airport that reminds me of you. It’s his slow walk and nothing else. You are easy to find because I make it that way. I flip my map upside down and leave. The coneflowers outside are laughing. What is someone supposed to do with a truck bed full of cherries? I don’t like cherries.

I sit at the end of the bar. Before I can ask for anything, the bartender smiles and brings me sangria. I would have ordered a rum and coke with two lime wedges. I flatten my map on the bartop. Write “WHERE ARE WE GOING” in blue pen in the top left corner. What a big question. Maybe it’s none of my business. I don’t like cherries.

Originally published by Brave Voices Magazine 2022

Maggie Fulmer lives and writes in Cincinnati, Ohio but is a proud product of Kentucky. Her work has been featured in Atlas+Alice, Olney, Bullshit Lit, and others. She is a founding editor of the indie literary magazine Many Nice Donkeys. You can find her on most corners of the internet (@mfulms21) talking about boy bands, books, and reality television. She can not do a cartwheel.