Thank. Full.

I'm really proud of having a beautiful mother. And I tell anyone who will listen, how good my father is.

You know what I mean? That simple and old terminology.

He is good.

He's honorable, honest. A straight shooter. Talented, funny, and smooth.

But the two of them. My mother with her quick wit and infectious cackle.

And my dad. His handshake is so warm and his anecdotes roll off the tongue like a secret.

Like a secret you want to hold close to your chest.

You carry it with you.

And I carry them with me.

They don't always know it,

And what's worse-

I don't always show it.

But I am proud to be theirs.

And at Christmas,

Just,

Thankful

Mess

Sometimes when I stare out of the window, I watch how the power lines splice the sky into segments. The piercing blues and the crunchy orange shadows of November. I imagine each sample of the sky, a different place and time in my life. A different direction.

Though it may look erratic, the sky is no less beautiful, or orderly, from being sectioned in to  so many different images.

It's all just up there. The leaves and the clouds. The faint whites and giant blues. The occasional bird's nest.

I imagine cutting the pieces between the telephone wires out. Like puzzle pieces. Tossing them around, and putting the sky back together.

Perhaps different than we found it, but still perfect, in its differences.

I hope, very much, that my life is like these splices of the sky.

Out of order, and possibly a mess.

But very, very beautiful.

Babylon

Babylon's a bad place
If you can't stand
If you've only set your sights
On the glory land

But in the worst minutes
And the darkest folds
I sit down with my palms in the dirt
I reach low

From the trees and the wind
From the birds and the sky

I can lift my face up
To the Lord on High

I can find the grace he planted
The season before
Watch it grow up from the wild
Where the branches soar

Sometimes we rest on what we haven't earned
Sometimes we collapse in the stories we were told

God's love
God's love
God's love

Loss

When sadraque died, I couldn't feel anything.

I knew I was sad. Bent. Hysterical even. I knew it. But I felt nothing.

I got the call. I looked fleetingly at my boyfriend, standing on a dusty patio, at a house show he was playing. We had been drinking beers and playing cards. Waiting for a crunchy and morose metal band to finish their set.

A normal night. Pleasant. With a slight breeze and a general coziness. As winter finally fell way to spring, and the last threat of cold excused itself from the evening breeze.

' li mouri.' Walnes said.

Where hours if not days before I had been told that he was on the mend, taking a turn for the better. That the worst was over.

And I believed them.

Believed them when they said that God would not let sadraque die. That the spirit had him.

But, as in all things Haitian. When he died.

They said, yes, we are sad, but it is done. And he is in heaven.

Sure, we miss him. But he's gone.

I sat on a metal railing beside a parking lot on Marshall street. I choked back vomit as warm tears adhered themselves to my mascara and drew vulgar lines down my cheeks. Sweat and snot met at the creases of my nose, and fell into the cracks of my lips.

But I'm in Virginia, I said.

I've been gone.

I've been here. And he's been there.

So to say, well he's gone.

I thought, he's been gone.

And this is not real.

And while, I know it is real. Still, day after day. Every day. Since that disgusting day in March. I remind myself,

Your friend is not here.

God, please tell Sadraque how much I love him. Tell him I miss him. Tell him, even though I was in Virginia.

He was always with me.