#my hometown gives me ethel cain vibes okay it's just a thing

[amoxicillin-tangent]

"her · it · age"

property that is or may be inherited; an inheritance.

i visit my hometown for the first time in a decade. i have never felt more or less like me. before today, i was no one because i had nowhere to remember and nothing that was truly mine. and now i feel like someone again. someone with roots.

my roots are filthy, nasty, rotten. set in a town with more bayous than banks, backwater, backwoods. my roots are set in trailer parks with moon crater puddles of stagnant water. my roots are set in putrid places where flowers refuse to bloom.

but at the corner right past the railroad that goes on forever, there is a trailer home without air conditioning where the hummingbirds fly. that is where my murky, trashy, broken roots begin and they are mine.

i buy a french vanilla cappuccino from a corner store that's open all night. the cashier takes one look at me and say "that'll be a dollar forty-nine. yer one-a dem Gauthier girls, aintcha?" and I nod politely, say yes ma'am i am, though i'm a Gauthier in face and not name. i pay a dollar bill and 2 quarters for my drink. she gives me a dime in change. by the time i realize she got it wrong, it's too late for me to turn back. i pocket the 10-cent piece. maybe I'll frame it.

there's a man selling peaches by the basket on the roadside. i buy a single one. it drips down my chin and tastes like heaven like home, and the scent won't leave my breath. i turn the car around and go back, understanding now why he sells them in batches of 20.

the clouds are fallen angels turning their backs on the world. everything prays for the south-- the grass, the grain, the dirt. eventually the angel clouds turn back around, casting their shadows at the rusted crucifix on Margie's purple wall. 

there are no towers on the horizon, no mechanical sepulchers sinking their teeth into the ground to drink the oil like parched soil drinks the year's first rainfall. there are no towers here, just trees for miles and angel clouds and rickety train-cars fallen on their sides.

the roads are almost empty, where they exist at all. there is more traffic at night. some of it is ghosts. no one questions this.

the neighbor ladies sip sweet tea and their gossip sounds like ice cubes clinking against smudged glasses, "didja hear Jessica's baby ain't right in the head?" "sure ain't. and who would be, under the circumstances? can't believe she married Chantelle." "funny, i never reckoned she'd be a dyke." there is an edge of disdain in their tea-glass voices, overshadowed by boredom.

strange things happen in the church on 1st street. the trains rush through the town. before anyone hears or sees them, they make their presence known by shaking the ground. everything is dilapidated now. the buildings are broken like a child's lincoln log castles. the families are shattered like mother's good vases.

the morning light comes and dew glistens over everything, spiderwebs stretch out bigger than my face, clover fields and dove feathers and honeysuckles litter the ground. 

everything has changed but its all the same, there are still pieces of me scattered through the world. at least i have this one back.

it's time for me to leave.