cotton candy nightmare

i'm not fond
of cotton candy,
as you may well know.
the pink or the blue
kind. having once
caught my arm
in the machine
as it spun wet dry
sugar into furious
hairy cones of
stickiness. i am
scarred for life
with that memory,
and often wake up
in the middle of
the night screaming,
no, no, not again,
as the carnival
roustabouts bang
their mallets
against the motor
in an effort to
save my life.