Snotting black

just because they’re all gummy bears doesn’t mean they all look the same

What if a gummy bear was one of us, just a regular teenage mom trying to make ends meet? What if she had come from abroken gummy home, where dad ran off with a peach ring, and mom committed suicide by going hot tubbing?

What if the kids in elementary school called her dummy bear, gumtard, and sweet cheeks? What if every night of 1^st through 5^th grade she wept weird gummy tears before dreaming gummy dreams of a sweeter world? What if no one sat by her in middle school because of her pineapple b.o.?

What if she tried to go through a goth phase during freshman year of high school but had no facial features to coat with black makeup? What if no one asked her to the prom senior year because they didn’t want to be the one dancing with a gigantic 6 foot candy bear? What if her first love and father of her gummy cub said he wouldn’t marry her because he had fallen for a Sour Patch Kid?

What if, after she dropped out of high school, she was reduced to selling her body and being rented out for parties as a freak spectacle? “Mommy, mommy! Come look at the huge gummy bear!” The kids would say. Her name was Lisa.

One New Year’s Day, 3 years after dropping out of high school and after working a particularly grotesque New Year’s Eve party, Lisa decided she’d had enough of this life. She quit her job and got her GRE, passing the test with the highest score of the year. She made headlines that week: “Gummy Bear Mauls Test.” “Why couldn’t they use my name?” she sighed.

But the news caught on. Soon she was a local celebrity, attending mini league championships and appearing in car dealership ads. She started a blog called “Faceless” and it didn’t take long before she became a national celebrity after a youtube video of her in zumba class went viral.

Soon movie deals and invitations from talk shows were flooding in. She was already writing a book and starring in a wildly popular reality television series featuring her and her son called “I Want Candy.” Notoriety began to consume every second of her life. She grew weary from the fame.

She yearned for the days she would lumber home from school and spend hours reading and thinking about the absurdity of life. There was no time to think about anything anymore.

A few years after she had quit her rental job, she woke up another New Year’s Day. The night before was hazy and mostly forgotten, a collage of bright lights, glitter, and plastic. She gazed into the mirror and realized what she’d become: a true monster. That very moment she decided to leave it all, the celebrity, the cocaine, the lacquered friends.

She took her son and fled to a small but tolerant city in upstate New York, where people had heard of her but were too interested in living wholesomely to pay much attention.

Within a month she was signing the lease to a space where she was going to build her dream, a dance studio called “Bounce!” where women of all sizes were welcome. As she opened her front door after driving back from the real estate agent’s office, she exhaled deeply.

“I’m home,” she whispered, “Lisa’s home.”