I love –
chocolate-covered cherries.

I love caramel-coated pecans with creamy, salty nougat in the middle.
I love cinnamon-flavored jelly beans and the black Necco wafers.
I love Valentine conversation hearts and Easter Egg malted milk balls
that leave your tongue blue and your lips a chalky white.
I love m&m’s on a hot day when the insides are melty and gooey and
the outsides snap thinly between your teeth. Chk.

I love airy peppermint puffs that evaporate on your tongue like dry meringue.
I love dry meringue.
Growing up I loved chewing on candy cigarettes,
saving the Red Dye #5 pretend fire painted on the tip for the last bite.
I love Good ’n Plenty, Ike ’n Mike, and Dots.

Chewy. Gummy. Crunchy. Candy.
I love it. I want it. I crave it.
I am a fructose-maniac.
If I loved anything half as much as I love maple sugar, cane sugar,
corn sugar, honey sugar, beet sugar? I would have to marry it.
Adopt it, steal it. Hoard it.

Sugar and me? We should be
the Eighth Deadly Sin or the Eleventh Commandment:
Thou shalt not eat your weight in sugar every day.
Thou shalt share your sugar with your friends.
Thou shalt brush your teeth after you eat Cracker Jacks.
Not before. Sugar.

I want the Archies tune for my ring tone.
But I don’t have time to talk on the phone.

I’m too busy lovin’ on my sugar.