She escaped with stories. As a child, she sat under pine trees with the whistle of the wind and got lost with Charlotte, Wilbur and Brer Rabbit. As a teen, she tucked herself away with Tom Sawyer, Scout and Holden Caulfield between the thick covers with a journal and one pen.
Life was messy otherwise. Her mother talked to herself and spit her meds in the garbage. She screamed at the sky in her nightgown and directed her anger toward a spirit in the sky. She wandered the streets in the same filthy nightgown until her feet were swollen and blue as the daughters tears fell into her sweet tea, and rolled onto the white pages gaining strength, and momentum as the years passed.
Language and books were teachers, her mother as she rose up-up-up with the wind, into the sky, among the spirits until the words flew right off her tongue and leaped off the page.
Someone listened.
Life was messy otherwise. Her mother talked to herself and spit her meds in the garbage. She screamed at the sky in her nightgown and directed her anger toward a spirit in the sky. She wandered the streets in the same filthy nightgown until her feet were swollen and blue as the daughters tears fell into her sweet tea, and rolled onto the white pages gaining strength, and momentum as the years passed.
Language and books were teachers, her mother as she rose up-up-up with the wind, into the sky, among the spirits until the words flew right off her tongue and leaped off the page.
Someone listened.
