prose of the month: We are made of MEMORIES

April 15, 2020

I live in the city but I’m from the country in my heart, where the dotted white lines run straight into dirt and dust; where the land opens up to miles and miles of corn, wheat and barley fields and the air tastes of honeysuckle; where every autumn the leaves of cottonwoods explode into colors you forgot existed and oranges from the Osage tree pile up in heaps along the street, desired only by the flies.

I’m made of a bottle rocket launching off a white-washed fence, Black Cats bursting inside empty soda cans, lit punks to smoke bombs and growing charcoal snakes. I’m made of the feeling of mud slipping between my toes after a hard rain and the smell of day-old pups scattered on wet newspapers wafting up from the basement. I come from broken in choo choo train bed sheets and cobblestone streets; black and white kitchen tiles and leaves raked into piles for a penny.

I come from an outgrown superstition of a held breath through tunnels and of footsteps over cracks in the cement; from a clouded sky taking shape in my head and a freshly picked blade of grass split into two on a hillside. I come from a blue and red stained tongue from an ice-cold rocket pop fresh off an ice cream truck; the sway of a porch swing in my father’s arms on Quentin Avenue. I come from a jar of fireflies and a front door flapping in the breeze.

I come from carameled apples and an old longing to join the circus; collected dust on spinning records and an elder voice that keeps singing even after he forgets his children's names. I come from cobwebs in unreachable corners, and a pair of roller skates with purple and pink ribbons; a handful of quarters for trade of gumballs out of a vending machine and the pitter-patter of squirrels chasing acorns on the roof. I come from a noxious smell of incense in a room adorned with crucifixes, where we were expected to sit, stand, kneel in unison, while reciting holy lines from a hymnal.

I'm made from the womb of a spirited woman with red stained lipstick on her coffee cup; from a man who longed to dream but instead he dreamt for us. I am made of hard lessons; a broken home that showed me tears and gave me songs to sing.

I am made of an American flag waving upon Pawnee plains, lowered and folded daily into a perfect triangle and the churn of whiskey ice cream in the driveway of a Midwest lakehouse. I come from a deck of cards on a pull out table on the rolling wheels of a Winnebago; the smell of propane and the sound of a generator kicking on.

And the memories we're made of go on and on.