Nothing in this life can dull the torment of awakening.
Once warm, soft in the womb, thoughtless not quite alive but undulating, cushioned.
Then the spring of joy, the stabbing of bounded existence,
perhaps meaningless, mostly alone – unguided.
In the beginning the world is fresh, loud.
It is day, sleepy, mama this, everything is now, this is my home, that is father.
Tomorrow, become, better, are foreign concepts that will tie their noose around my throat
later, but for now, Giulia is in the garden and Mama calls to us – she knows everything.
Larks, cicadas, hushed whispers are the soundtrack;
my women envelope me, they tower over me, now is all there is,
so I pull my hair to stay awake.
Mama tells me that the world could be mine – so the straining begins, the tombstone
inscribed.
Sudden, excruciating as birth, the funeral of childhood approaches.
The cashier at Piggly Wiggly calls me baby and tugs on my hair,
A rabbit hole of permanent confusion; soon to become chronic dissatisfaction,
future appears on the horizon, being is no longer enough.
I am digging my fingernails into what’s left of naivety as the colors dull,
being awake is not as fun anymore.
Around my shoulders, the black cracked cold settles in, father wakes up earlier.
Time passes, and I ask when will we awaken from this endless night?
I dream that a fire sparks by the creek igniting my mother’s camelias,
it burns us down and I do not fight.
I, too, sing America – the teacher recites, her eyes linger on me.
Amongst the dark, gold-adorned walls of church, God turns into a lowly priest.
I ask who prays for Lucifer?
My father pulls the car over, NPR speaks of Adam Lanza and 20 first-graders,
it is the first time I see him cry.
Changing looms heavy like lead on my chest.
Strange sympathy, at an accidental touch of the soft flesh of my grandmother –
uncomfortable understanding of what may be to come.
Time passes, and I ask when we will awaken from this endless night?
The television blares blood, redder than red;
weary and afraid, Trayvon Martin’s family tries to convince us
that their lives matter too.
Split black backs breaking over railroads, over bricks of a great capital,
over perilous murky water and cotton fields.
Stretching, straining, muscles aching,
we begin to believe in Obama’s Camelot – a more perfect union,
multi-coloured and a melody of different tongues.
I rise to the heart of hate’s many headed Hydra beating by my feet.
Outside my childhood bedroom window,
Fingers and arms claw for the residue of American Dreams,
their nailbeds are caked in sun baked clay, their heads bloody but unbowed.
Time passes, and I ask when will we awaken from this endless night?
Gas guzzling trucks storm the parking lot of Hillcrest High,
angry Confederate flags dash and divide Martin’s dream in half.
Crazy Nellie carves prayers into the telephone pole at the end of the street she calls, there must be brighter lights somewhere.
In the forest, I stumble over the remains of a girl.
The smell is like overripe fruit, she is naked but for smudged red lipstick.
A heart struggling to beat, I find fuzzing mold on my cheek.
On Twitter, the local police department cannot identify Jane Doe.
Time passes, and I ask when will we awaken from this endless night?
Special, you’re so special, the girl in the mirror whispers.
My mother’s hand strokes my hair but Instagram takes over the mind.
Prettier, skinnier, smarter, cooler stain the capillaries of the brain.
Jane stands, daffodils pierce her eyes, she points and calls out “not enough!”
On the cover of a magazine, an old woman clutches her heart.
Certainty falters, heat blisters the bible belt but our hands rifle through piles of clothes.
Is it not enough?
Cicadas have changed their tune, now commanding:
Do something, anything.
The lines in my parents’ faces deepen, cracking their smiles in half.
The women who lifted me, who once stood over me have shrunken and rusted.
Hope promises of a twisted tomorrow. I end our conversations by liking the last message, but
I am in love with you.
Grief takes Jane’s form, the house grows quiet,
my bunica with hands once larger than my own, forgets a daughter she once knew.
Communist flies buzz around her head, Faulkner says the past is never past.
Obligation and guilt hang onto my pant legs, together we hide in the stairs,
we listen amongst the feathers of ripped comforters, and sleep in between the pages of books.
Time passes, and I ask when will we awaken from this endless night?
Frozen frames of crazed men beating capitol police officers infiltrate our screens.
Denounce as they might, deep in the crevice of ignorance sprouts a brave new world.
Now, I am convinced my mother knows little for certain, her mother even less.
I drop a dead dove at her feet, I love her, but not in a way she understands.
The track to be trekked is fraught and contrived,
Eyes turned towards the sky, I forgive her and me – it is our first time alive.
In truth, only a man would claim to be wise.
Life can offer nothing to cushion awakening, all that is human bounds to disintegrate into a husk.
The fragility of being, the heart struggling to beat, the strained rush of pressure –
Eternal searching, for something more – better, kinder, stronger, fairer;
How little things matter, how quickly they lay forgotten.
Catastrophe is the cost of existence.
Oh, I say, these are the soul!
Trogoautoegocrat, time passes and we will awaken from this endless night.
Von Sarah Dragan
