today i was filled with cotton candy. it was soft and sticky, but it wasn’t innocent. it started out as a thick white smoke, the tendrils of which coiled and uncoiled menacingly. i didn’t want to know what it felt like to have that untrustworthy vapor crowd in among my bones and organs and muscles. so before it reached my chest, i decided that it would be cotton candy. but an essence of the suffocating white smoke lingered, even as i focused on the sweet wisps of edible cloud spilling out of my chest like stuffing.

today i was filled with cotton candy, but yesterday i was filled with molten metal: heavy and scalding. i felt it swim around my insides, touching every drop of blood in my veins. it wasn’t nearly as benign – it began to permeate my thoughts, my actions. i became the mercurial liquid, burning those around me. i was so much heavier than when i was stuffed with spun sugar.

today i was filled with cotton candy, but many other substances have resided within me. i have been filled with hot, thick blood, boiling with hatred. i have felt my insides drowning in saltwater, stinging and dehydrated. i have felt the sweet springtime grass sprouting from my heart and my lungs and my brain, exuding a friendly perfume.

today i was filled with cotton candy, and i have embraced all that I have been stuffed with. but today was the first time that I had control over it. somehow, i managed to turn something malignant and ominous into something sweet and amiable.