Lilly Long
Golden fields beckon me, where the combine drowns out my thoughts and dust choke my lungs, and yet I’ve never been able to breathe easier. I am the Queen-Anne’s lace in the ditches, or rather the hemlock, and that house on the hill, and that old dog on the porch.
I am a Christian, a metaphorical mother, a wannabe want-out martyr, a modern Joan of Arc. More than what I am, the big world and all its potential, I am minuscule, a sweet singing mourning dove, a cicada shell.
Slender fingers on ivory keys, Für Eloise, I play just for me. I am my sister’s sister, not my own person but an extension of them. I live through the characters I write, and those pages keep me alive. I’d die for the satisfaction, but my ambition always brings me back.
A sensitive child, a raving fire, I loathe it, I love it, heart tightens and expands in bloodstains. I make it full circle and back, and back again. An old lover, I forgive and give and hold tight until my wrists break. A crack in my voice, a tight-lipped smile with bad posture.
It’s full of gravel roads and exhaust fumes, back to my grandmother’s house, that old barn, our small rickety family farm. Hold me again in your frail arms and block it out with box fans, and jazz, and sweet tea that’s sickening; I’ll never heal.
Screen doors keep me in, the night air pushes me out. Among the coyote howls and train whistles, I drift. In and out of consciousness I dream of peace, always peace. Back to the combine in the fields and from the lives of my sisters, down in the church and through my blindness, rest in my grandmother’s arms and under my book. I’ll be there; I’ll heal. I will, I will, I will.