They hand my parents the knife
before they ask if I am hungry.
I sit at the table
watching them cut the fruit open
as if my hands are made of fog,
as if the red weight of it
would slip through me
and shatter.
They say it is love.
A pomegranate splits
and suddenly there are hundreds of answers
seeds glistening like small hearts,
like constellations
pressed into ruby flesh.
But no one asks the fruit
how it wishes to be opened.
They ask the orchard keeper instead.
They ask the gardener.
They ask the people
who have only ever tasted
the juice from someone else’s hands.
I am told I am a difficult fruit.
Too many seeds.
Too much work.
Too strange to eat neatly.
Society prefers apples
simple slices,
predictable sweetness,
nothing that stains the tablecloth.
But I am abundance.
I am a thousand bright rooms
inside one quiet skin.
Break me open
and you will find not emptiness
but a crowded universe
patterns, repetitions,
small jeweled thoughts
arranged with deliberate care.
Still, they worry.
They say
Let the parents speak for the fruit.
Let the experts describe its flavor.
Let the orchard decide when it is ripe.
Meanwhile
I am still here
on the plate.
In the old stories
a girl eats pomegranate seeds
and is told that means
she belongs to the underworld.
Sometimes I think
autistic people live there too
not dead,
not gone,
just in a quieter kingdom
where the light arrives differently
and every sound
has a sharper edge.
We are called back
only when someone needs a myth.
But listen.
Love is not cutting the fruit
for someone forever.
Love is sitting beside them
while they learn the slow work
of breaking the skin,
of letting the red juice run
over their own fingers,
of discovering
that mess is not failure
it is evidence
of sweetness.
If you want to know me
do not ask the knife.
Do not ask the orchard.
Ask the seeds.
There are hundreds of them
speaking at once.
And yes,
the table will be stained.
That is what happens
when something alive
is finally opened
by its own hands.
