from the kitchen table.

Today is my sixteenth day in Carolina.

It is also

the sixteenth day of thunder.

Do you know what it’s like to hear thunder down south?

* A resounding noise produced by the explosive expansion of air *

It comes even on sunny days

On unexpected days

On grey and green and wet days

And this time: it comes everyday.

 

 

I hear this sound and my wild impulses ignite.

Surge.

The need to call up a storm.

On these days I find myself fighting:

even gravity.

Don’t feed me a physical law of withholding,

I am on an insatiable journey.

My feet belong to more than the surface sixty-seven inches below me.

LET ME FIND THE REST.

 

* Humidity often causes excessive thirst *

 

With the thunder there is lightening.

Sometimes, we never see the rain.

But everyday I’ve seen a spark.

Do you know what it’s to see heat lightning?

A distant flash in the sky.

Not a sinlge bolt

Not a finger streak

But an area of clouds

Simultaneously: igniting.

When the heat lightning comes, there is no sound.

These flashes are warnings of far away storms,

And though the light reaches you

Its voice is a mystery

The shape of her hands has yet to be revealed.

Instead, our sky alights in silence.

And we wait for the answer

And the source

To come at once.

हिलाना

Last night I was drivin with little Bradley.

We were sharing a cheerwine on our way home.

“Woahhhhh,” he said to me.

“Is the world shakin?”

 

“I think it is,” I said, just being honest… Can he feel what I’ve been feeling?

 

“Why does it shake Brad?”

 

“The world shakes when the sun hides behind the moon… and look! I can’t see the moon anymore. It’s giant and it’s gone. Where does the moon go?”

 

“The clouds cover up the moon sometimes,” I told him.

“Why else do you feel the world shakin?”

 

He explained a few theories from his five years of experience.

 

“Maybe a giant ant!

Or a volcano, ‘splodin with blue…

 

Or a giant white flag walkin the earth.”

 

I imagined myself as a giant white flag.

I SURRENDER.

In my mind, we all did.

Walking together, we bounded the earth as we dropped our armor, shed our facades, and let the truth win.

Our clean banner blew threw the thick southern thunder.

WE SURRENDER.

If it means you will shoot at our weakest limb

If it means we will all be starting over

If it makes the world shake with stories finally spoken,

With loud footprints:

We surrender.

 

And whether we shake for this white flag, for the blue bursting volcano, or the shift in the sky… we will never shake by being small. Even Brad knows, all of these events are caused by giants. Are you afraid? You are the sky. Stop hiding.

 

“Silly Moon!” he said.

“There it is up there. I didn’t even see the clouds move away.”

 

Shake it up ya’ll.

Let go.

The moon remains.

 

Still Learning.

I look at you and see

Calm

Comfort

Affirmation.

 

I called you this morning

4  AM your time

7 in mine

I heard you and felt

Trust

Peace

Gratitude, and then

Without restless questions

I found sleep again.

 

We are far away

But I am not afraid

I am not pained at the possibility

Of the unsaid name.

Instead

We know

I am with you.

 

Thankful

For the unpredictable storm

That has swallowed us.

Stretch my spirit

To this slow sound.

 

With you I am constant

I have shelter,

Without suffocation.

Hope without ache.

With you I am a balance of time.

 

Choices.

30ish people read this poem in its entirety.

then 

I read it again.

"none erased. none edited..."

but to make posters of them?

not fair to stoph.

not kind to them.

not necessary for me.

of course, none of that occurred to me in my selfish moment of composition. 

he's a nice boy.

this was my decision.

Whining.

This is just to say 

that I'm home from the beach

where I exhausted my new journal 

and microsoft word.

Page. Page. page. 

pagepagepagepagepagepage.

The plan is not: Keep Posting.

Just: Keep writing.

You don't get to see any of it.

Because it's either way personal

or crappy.

But generally both.

All together frustratingly spazzy and open ended pages have been heaping.

Everywhere.

What's gonna happen when I'm trying to  be a legit writer and can't speak?

Oh wait, that's today.

Meanwhile, I love reading the coherent words ya'll seem to be capable of. 

You should have this.

This is one verse.

From a song by a band called Stars.

It means something big to me.

* * * * * 

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in

Now you're outside me

You see all the beauty

Repent all your sin.

It's nothin but time and a face that you lose

I chose to feel it 

and you couldn't choose

I'll write you a post card

I'll send you the news

From the house down the road

From real love.

(Live through this and you won't look back.)

There's one thing I want to say

So I'll be brave

You were what I wanted

I gave what I gave

I'm not sorry I met you

I'm not sorry it's over

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save.

An open door.

I'm here listenin to Taylor Swift in Lacey's room.

When I first came in the door there were:

*pictures plastered all around her big window

*magazine clippings and quotes covering the bed

*A lacey-made wooden block with the words: YOU ARE ENOUGH.

This is my soldier of a creativesoul sister. She is fifteen. She is a powerhouse.

My family is made of little powerhouses.

I've only been to this house once-- last Christmas. 

In the few years before that it was

Kensington Street, Walmsley Place, The hotel down the street, Sago Lane...

I plop on her bed, my old bed, and wonder: 

Do you know the hell we went through while you were in storage?

I call my Mom at work.

"You can do that now," she once told me.

"They let my kids call me here, because I'm the boss."

I imagine the first time my Mom showed up to that dental office:

I see her scrubs and blondie southern hair-- showin her toptenpercentile test scores from a trip back to college as a mother of five with another job on top. Unemployed husband.

I know she sat in that interview, not afraid to show them who she was.

(YOU ARE ENOUGH.)

I know she busted herself every day after that for her promotions-- for us. 

"Shoulda been a dentist," she always tells me.

"Where's my Wyndsi?" I hear downstairs.

It's Bradley. He wants to show me his new frog, which is plastic and one inch wide, but the center of his world today. "WYNDSI! Wanna play Shoots and Wadders? You can't cheat! But it's okay if you win. I can't reach it can you help me? I'll be in Kindergarten next year. I'm hungry..." That kid is 50 zillion words per minute. Mom says I was the same way... am the same way.

I haven't seen Corey yet, he's on a trip to see Palmyra with some church kids, one of them is that girl he's been wanting forever. 

"She likes bad guys though," he says.

"But I'm goin on a mission, and I'll come back an even better good guy.

By then maybe she'll see what kind of man she really wants to e with. And there I'll be. 

Even if she doesn't, that'll be enough for me."

I could have died when I heard him say that months ago on the phone. This is coming from my brother, who sits on 18 years of anger and all his unspoken words. I worry about him, and then I hear progress in declarations like that one. 

I call my Mamaw.

"Your Mama says you look thin. I've got a ham in the fridge and a big thinga squash already cooked in the freezer," she assures me. 

Have I mentioned I dropped 8 pounds on accident?

I think my body knows I'm about to go to the beach for 8 days, each one including 4-5 buttered up southern meals from my blessed Mamaw. It is preparing.

Jesse comes in to tell me he's cleaned the living room and the kitchen-- done the dishes, and taken the trash out. 

"Can you fold the towels so I can skate with Brynn?"

No allowance. No whining. Battle scars from halfpipe tricks and mosquito bits on his thirteen year old legs. Shaggy hair everywhere. He hugs me.

Jesse is tough, but won't hide all his love to prove it.

These are a few minutes with my Carolina family. We are not finished with the struggle, but we're still here. WE ARE ENOUGH.

My Dad? He came home last night. I kept my eyes open long enough to hug him before bed. Except he hugged me first. Then, I turned around. More effort.

"Wanna see my journal?"

I show him the things I glued in today, which feels like showing him that I want him in my life. Though to him, this may just be a display of my college-level cut&paste skills. 

But I am trying. I didn't want to go to bed without trying.

"I love you. Goodnight."

"Love you too."

Does my Dad know that I think he is enough?

You're enough Dad. 

We're gonna be okay.