with her long string bow of wonder and curiosity

It is a common act to praise warriors throughout history for their aggressive bravery, devotion and undeniable impact on others. Although she has never been bloodied in war, my mother is a warrior. Tracie Rae Kidd: a woman whose name requires no carving on massive stone blocks to be placed in town square to remind others of her virtue. She carries her strength with her in everything she says and does, her presence is felt everywhere she goes and tangibly lingers when she leaves. Her weapons are ideas, feelings and words brandished across her chest like hand crafted arrows, which, upon impulse, she sets aflame and sends flying, piercing that which is everything new and unknown with her long string bow of wonder and curiosity. Those that have been so blessed to have crossed her path have felt her fire. As a woman who has forever preached the importance of fearlessness in every endeavor, urging the necessity to pour oneself unabashedly into everything one does with a sense of grandeur and daring, so too will I here attempt to boast the boundlessness of her being in such a way which echoes the very bold, boisterous and unbridled manner in which she breathes and blows through the world each day.


(This is the introduction. I can't find the rest of it on my computer, but when I do, I will post it)

3am Saturday night/early morning

3am Saturday night/early morning. You knocked soft on my window, I guess you figured I would be awake. I have had trouble sleeping recently, and everyone knows that you never rest. I pulled up the blinds, slid open the window pane. There you stood, your face lit up only by the streetlight, partial and secretive with that look on like you’re up to something, arched eyebrows, eyes wide and dark and impatient, like your scheming. I ran around to the door, opened it and led you with my hand past the fluorescent lights in the hallways that stay on through the night.
...
In the name of beauty and truth and damning the man you’d say. Romance and radicalism never tasted sweeter together. I guess the most troubling part is that somewhere in my mind I already had a bag packed, willing to follow you anywhere you wanted to take me.

I evaporate into a fine mist,
tasting like cotton candy when you breathe me in.
But I'm no pastel colors.

And I don't wear camouflage,
it makes me look invisible.

dumblage

My mind is full of dust balls
with faces.
They don't talk.
Their mouths are covered by nappy dust-hair.
They just dust-mumble. (or d'umble for short)
ALL I HEAR IS DUMBLAGE.
Dumblage and moist musty dew
spews from the droplets trapped in
broken umbrellas that have been

stuck

in the back of Our Closet since last fall.

old writings of old feelings

tonight you made me sad.
It wasn't your fault.
It wasn't mine either.
It wasn't because you didn't come over.
It wasn't because of something stupid, something simple.
I just feel a little hollow.
A little bit like that home that I had found inside of you,
that warm place that I so loved to curl up in,
I feel a bit...as though I weren't allowed, weren't able
to feel it a safe place any longer.
It's as if you could suddenly choose to move it,
like it were on wheels or could just up and fly off into heavy clouds.
It just makes me wonder if I should just pretend like it was never here, close, holding me safe and soft,
wanting to wrap its walls around me.
I should just convince myself that
the projects are just the projects
even if it seemed like home growing up.
(The place you call home doesn't give a fuck about you.)

But I know (think?) you give a fuck.
I think you care. I don't think that you want to be temporary housing.
No. Wishful thinking and imposed ideals.
I wish you were a beautiful house of brick,
the kind that cools in the summer and holds heat in the winter.
The kind that likes where its at.
The kind that'll stick around for a while.