Sugar Honey Iced Tea

We dance around the kitchen when we should be washing dishes Fluttering curls frame long lashes wide with glee Delirious with a stolen second that’s endless in your eyes What are we to each other That this, our best offering, is the one so often scarce? I don’t dare catch the thought or breath for fear of losing it You splay your arms and spin, soft tongue emerging as you concentrate Even for you, joy demands a sacrifice I can’t look in case you fall, in case you fly After, we hold each other close and remember that it happened My solace later when, lying awake, I number all my faults I am not worthy of your easy laugh but you give it anyway Your hope like feathers in my palms One breath and they scatter on the air -Ileana Ramirez Sara J. Winston learned the phrase "sugar honey iced tea" in the fourth grade from a substitute teacher in her New York State public school. The phrase is a euphemism and acronym for the word shit. She began using the term regularly sometime in 2019 after her daughter was born. Now, at the age of five, her daughter has three toy cats and their names are Sugar, Honey, and Iced Tea. Sara is a chronically ill parent of a young child and, until recently, the daughter of a chronically ill father. Sugar Honey Iced Tea is a description and response to the pace of some of life’s challenges: months spent nursing an infant, years spent caring for a sick body, hoping for and imagining a more equitable future, waiting for a child to fall asleep, wishing for the sun to rise, and trying to visualize the idea that, like her dad often said, we are too visceral to be intelligent.