The house is not burned down. It sits on top of the hill, overlooking the other houses like a guard dog. You stare out the window and see a sign
from your childhood that reads: "Slow, Children at Play" but you don't see any children so you wait inside your house made of broken bottles, ignore the mail piling up on the table because it's not your job to keep things organized. You are the one who fixes the vacuum cleaner when it breaks, while I
sit on the couch with the bright orange notebook (easy to find in the clutter) preparing a page for each month-- mortgage, utilities, credit cards, car payment leaving blanks beside the words to fill when the time comes, when these things become due, to help me remember
something from my childhood, you said in order to save us we must understand where we come from. And I point to the sign on the road that reads: "Caution: Bridge May Ice In Winter" but you don't believe me because it rarely ever happens in the South, and when it does
we are taught to be prepared, stock up on the essentials: milk and bread is all we need to make it through. And I believed you
until this morning when I realized I've been forgetting to water my plants, the house keeping me up all night trying to set itself on fire.
The sense of injury and resilience happen at one level, as temporal and spatial distance underscore that reality. Many levels operating here. Appealingly subtle and deeply felt from the fine rendering.
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