The Ordinary Times

as i imagined

7/13/10/
there was this moment just now, when i realized i had peed forever. the pee started because Stand By Me had been on until the part where you realize your brother is gone and you have had to pee so bad that it hurt standing and sitting and going. Pee. When you discover that to be something you actually have control over, it’s funny and amazing and terrifying if you are a girl. Because girls  know that all boys pee standing up at an appropriate age, and all girls want to be able to be the girl that does it too. And for a few years you think it’s going to be you and then one day you hear that Ashley Shank, the babeliest girl at Creswell Middle School,  not only drives a 4×4 but she indeed has also attended Hunter’s Safety Course and at this very moment she is gutting her 5-point on the backside of Cougar Reservoir, just south of where your brother lay; and you decide that today’s the day you’re going to _____ yourself.

Not the gurgle of the calf that dropped from Harold’s heifer weeks before, or the one eyed cat buried in the basket of felines left in the front pasture…not one of these things you felt for could outweigh the counting paces of your dried out roots, beating to the sun of yours and mine. The hush of the single blue heron’s thoughts on the pond your dad dug is enough to quiet a month’s worth of cattle calls, even if there were only two cattle. And so came the day when you told little golden Crystal that her mother was never returning to the house on the Swale and that she would have to inhabit the rope swing forever, because you thought it sounded dreamy and romantic and a thousand other words a child doesn’t know until they’re older.

None of this could quiet the misery for you. It has long since been by my side, in a blur of gray quiet silences and drawn out further than usual moments, gently securing my chin at the direst of interactions.

When that happens you will find it as awkward as hell, girl. You’ll be like, are you serious?? Are you serious right now? This shit actually happened to me? I cannot believe this is going on, because I am under control. I have all this shit figured out and those friends o’mine who think they do are all twisted as shit. I can’t believe you would actually look at me that way. What in the fuck is that look suppose to mean? Is it real?  IS IT REAL?! Of course it’s fucking real!!! They don’t even know where I came from. Seriously, they do not. My friends of friends carry rifles like lunch boxes in rear window views. They say it’ll come in handy when I can’t hold it till Wilbur’s caught. Wilbur is the big One that they’re all searching for. When my dad catches it, or Harvey, but mostly my dad, he holds it up with a large East to West swinging grin, to let the world know he found what it was he was looking for here. Which is the look we are all looking for when we come here.