Bananas, BanANAS, BANANAS

by isabella castelo

Art by Hailey Kroll

“Bananas, bananas, bananas.”

I repeat this mantra to myself as the taste of blood fills my mouth. I bite my tongue and conjure the image of the bright yellow phallus trying to still my quivering lip and dry my eyes.

I’m a sensitive person. The smallest thing can break my heart. If I let myself, I’ll cry for hours. But somehow, along the way, I’ve created a hard, emotionless persona for myself. After 20 years, there’s no going back, so I gnaw on my tongue and think about bananas. 

When I learned my brother attempted suicide at the same time as an entire church congregation, I thought about bananas. I sat in the back pew, listening to his testimony, not recognizing him or his story. We share a birthday and half our DNA, but secrets, emotions, and near death experiences are off limits. Bananas, bananas, bananas. 

When I visit my grandmother, who doesn’t know my name anymore, I think about bananas. I pet her starving cat and sit next to her like a stranger on the subway. Neither of us know why we’re forced to do this anymore. Bananas, bananas, bananas. 

When my dad told me he had pancreatic cancer I thought about bananas. I just got back from studying abroad and he waited four months to tell me so I didn’t worry. He asked if I was okay and all I did was nod and shrug my shoulders. Bananas, bananas, bananas. 

Bananas. I need them. The image is always ready in the back of my mind in case of a sudden death, or my dad calls Uncle Louis a bum. I can never break, never let anyone know I’m hiding something soft, and mushy inside me.

The last time I cried in front of my family was at my great grandma’s funeral. I sobbed so much I had to be escorted outside. I was eight. I didn’t know much about death, but I knew I would never see her again or eat her spinach ravioli. They chided me, giggled at me for my vulnerability. It’s been 12 years since I let myself be that brave. 

Since then, “Sassy” shot herself, Adam was kicked out of the family for being gay, TJ went crazy on meth then married a Jesus freak, Aunt Laurie stopped talking to me because I made fun of her Samsung, my grandma’s home nurse crashed her car through her house, I was almost an only child—probably more than once.   

All this, and no tears. No tears means no sadness. I keep them locked away, in a compartment in the back of my throat. They beg to be released, but I bite them back and feed them bananas. At eight years old, I swore they’d never laugh at me again, 12 years later and they all think I hate them because of how little I let them know. They don’t remember my tears at eight, so they won’t get them at 20. 

People ask about my childhood and family and whether we’re close. All I can say is not much happened, nothing exciting. Things could be worse, so if I didn’t cry, why mention it? If people started asking how many times I thought about bananas growing up, the list would never end. I’d ramble about the aunts and cousins whose ages and faces I no longer remember. They’d hear stories of when we laughed together and when they knew me, when I felt comfortable to give them my childish worries in return for back scratches. 

I’d talk about them, and slowly my mouth would taste like iron and my mind would go blank except for one thing—bananas, bananas, bananas.