We’ve seen claims that Twinkies … aren’t baked, the sponge cake instead being “a pure chemical reaction” involving something that “foams up”; the deception is made complete by coloring the confections’ bottoms brown to make it appear that they’ve been baked … As always, the truth is far less exciting than the lore.
—Snopes.com
as if you were ever wide-eyed enough to believe in urban legends
as if these plot elements weren’t the stalest of clichés: the secret lab, the anaerobic chamber, the gloved hand ex machina, the chemical-infused fog
as if every origin story didn’t center on the same sweet myth of a lost wholeness
as if such longing would seem more palatable if packaged as nostalgia
as if there had once been an instant of unity, smoothly numinous, pellucid
as if inner and outer were merely phases of the same substance
as if this whiteness had been your original condition
as if it hadn’t been what was piped into you, what suffused each vacant cell, each airhole, each pore
as if you had started out skinless, shameless, blameless, creamy
as if whipped, passive
as if extruded, quivering with volatility in a metal mold
as if a catalyzing vapor triggered a latent reaction
as if your flesh foamed up, a hydrogenated emulsion consisting mostly of trapped air
as if though spongelike, you could remain shelf-stable for decades, part embalming fluid, part rocket fuel, part glue
as if instead you had been named twin, a word for “likeness”; or wink, a word for “joke”; or ink, a word for “stain”; or key, a word for “answer”
as if your skin oxidized to its present burnished hue, golden
as if homemade
