Somehow I walk the world both cutting and soft. Somehow I forget how sweetness always bleeds. A boy calls me strawberry seed and unbuttons me slowly. Plants sprout up dead and too fast. I am too much for myself to stomach. BRIANNE ALLEN

a farmer's guide to picking strawberries with a broken heart:

1. Grasp the stem above the berry between the forefinger and the thumbnail and pull, slightly twisting it as if you'd do to your heart to make it leave a place it shouldn't be.

2. With the stem broken, allow the berry to roll into the palm of your hand.

3. Repeat until your hands are full.

4. Carefully place the berries, and the pieces of your heart, into the container.

5. Repeat until you've all the berries you need, and all the broken pieces of your heart are found.

6. Neatly pack them down like all the feelings you ever had for someone you could never have.

7. Don't worry if you do damage one or two, like your pride, like your heart, strawberries do bruise easily, but it won't affect the flavour and there's still so much you can do with something imperfect.

	It begins as potential, flowering into life before it bears fruit. Is it a strawberry or a heart? Love, too, blooms, against all odds and waits, heart-full, hopeful, to be picked. Won't you choose it? All you have to do is reach out, gently, and pull. (Pick me.)		The season was almost over the last time I went strawberry picking. The fruit left was bruised, dark spotted with over-ripe wish to be wanted. Don't pick those ones, he said, but I fell to my knees and worked gently until my hands were sticky and stained. They might look rotten, but the juice was sweet. I might be imperfect, too, but there's still something good.

We're home, it's late April and we're home in a room sun-warm and suffused with something like love. The strawberries are hulled and all have bled, their sweetness a stain on my skin. I wear it as I bite into it, late spring strawberry: I eat it all, in a single bite because this is what I know—

What is as sweet as a heart taken neat?

Here is how you eat a strawberry: pull the leaves off and eat the entire strawberry, crown-end first, in one bite. This pus the sweetest part of the strawberry right on the tip of your tongue so you, too, can speak with sweetness.

Kiss me and tell me I taste tart, like something brand new—spring fresh and ripe for you.

When to pick strawberries:

Oh, when you're in love.

a girl's guide to picking strawberries when in love:

1. Grasp the stem above the berry between the forefinger and the thumbnail and pull, slightly twisting it to release it like the valve of your heart.

2. As the berry rolls into your hand, cradle it like you do this newly ripe heart you've been given.

3. One is enough.

4. Gently wrap the berries and heart into a cheesecloth and pack them away to care for them.

5. Take the hand of the one you love and walk through the field, sun on your back. Savour it.

6. Rinse well once home in your ordinary kitchen, keep in your extraordinary heart.

7. Don't worry if you do some damage to the berry, or to the heart, as both will bruise easily, but so long as you remember to say I'm sorry, so long as you say I love you tenderly, the imperfect heals perfectly.

I soak the strawberries in champagne like my mother taught me. This kitchen is ordinary, but something extraordinary is happening in it. We are here, choosing to be together, sharing this treat of fresh strawberries, sugar-drunk and nothing but a ripe night ahead of of us. Nothing but you, you, you. picking me, me, me.

	songs to slice strawberries to on a late april evening
	RAC, LeyeT ▹ Carefree ⚊ j ember ▹ Sleep Well ⚊ Greatest Hits ▹ Palm Springs ⚊ Caamp ▹ Strawberries ⚊ ASL ▹ Cinnamon Girl ⚊ Houses, Dawn Golden ▹ Pink Honey ⚊ Grapetooth ▹ Red Wine ⚊ Calvin Love ▹ Warm Blindness & A Cool Breeze ⚊ Love Tapes ▹ Baby ⚊ Whitney ▹ Valleys (My Love) ⚊⚊ LISTEN?