My darkest thoughts are like dipping a United States into a scabbard.A United States flexes itself on a map     What was it liketo grow up inside the hegemony?     Nothing special of courseWhat was it like to live inside that economy that pressed you intoa flattened portion of a person?     It wasn’t so dramatic, we were okayMy childhood is a museum display of the suburbs in the 1990sBehind glass: a trampoline, a fax machine, the memorized telephone numbers of my friendsWhat fruits had you eaten as a child?Only banana watermelon Red Delicious apples and (very expensive) strawberries as a treatMore often it was the idea of fruit, something flavored like a fruitStrawberry Pop Tart.     What’s inside it?     A deep red smear of sugarAs red as.     Oh I don’t know.     A smear of emotionWhat was it like to grow up inside the hegemony?On the one hand the nation was swinging its head and stamping its hoovesOn the other hand we were eating what they told us was food, we believed them foreverIt was food     We knew what they told us was true