Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dear Chocolate Chip Cookie Baker,

As we stood in the cold, granite-filled kitchen,

Hand over hand,

Stirring the pool of chocolaty, gooey goodness below,

I could feel heat radiate through my body,

Both from the preheating oven and your body pressed again mine.

When we carefully scooped the dough balls into perfectly shaped, golf-ball sized spheres

And plopped them onto the oil-drenched baking sheet,

I could see the balls slip around in the grease,

As if trying to find their place.

In order to put the cookies in the roaring heat monster,

With its red, blaring eyes,

We first had to carefully pry its mouth open,

Seemingly asking for the acceptance of our hopeful gifts.

We stood, together,

Shoulder to shoulder,

Watching the rising treats of delight with wonder and interest

Through the double-paned, delicate glass of that oven.

Like onlookers,

In a zoo at a newly-born koala exhibit,

We gazed and waited together with a degree of optimism and curiosity.

The timer clicked slowly,

As if the second hand was resisting the pulsing motor located within the enclosed walls of that porcelain clock.

Our impatience resembled the awful feeling of waiting in a hospital

 While a loved one is being operated on,

And we were waiting for the white-coated robot to storm through the double, swinging doors,

Assuring us our beloved was ok.

The cookies began to boil like molten lava at the bottom of a bubbling volcano.

Finally, the buzzing timer dings,

Like the clamorous church bells that awake me every Sunday morning,

And you,

You shield your hands with the newly bought oven mitts,

Tags still attached.

Prying the monster’s mouth open,

The smell of chocolate chip cookies is suddenly released into the air,

Like prisoners escaping from their first time.

We place the heated pan on our cool stove,

And you insist I take the first bite.

The warmth of the gooey, melty chocolate coats my mouth,

In every corner and crevice.

My body fills with the same feeling of happiness that I felt,

When my baby cousin grasped onto my pinky finger with her entire fist,

As if my digit was her only life line.

After numerous years of tasting the same cookies with the same baker,

The chocolate begins to taste less sweet

And the dough appears less gooey.

We have been onlookers at the koala exhibit so many times,

That we can already predict the koala’s movement.

And once,

I trusted you,

To take the cookies out,

And you expected me,

To take the cookies out,

But neither of us remembered.

When the smoke began to billow from the monster’s gaping mouth,

As if it were a dragon preparing to breath fire,

We could no longer laugh nor admire.

Your once new oven mitts were now stained and tattered,

As they opened that door for one last time,

Removing the burnt, charred crisps.

Instead of the air being filled with warm traces of delight,

It was filled with the heat of our anger and upset of our yells.

Now,

Instead of our shared double-paned glass,

I look at you,

Through my single-paned phone screen,

Scrolling through pictures in the spaces where we used to stand,

Your hands are no longer in tattered oven mitts,

But holding those of another baker,

And her smile,

Boils my blood like molten lava at the bottom of a bubbling volcano.

Best of luck,

Your once beloved companion