Pineapple wrote:
Lucinda made me uncomfortable, with all that honesty. How could she say those things? How could she sing to God and creation about how it feels to be alone in the dark, needing that other person so badly that you can feel it under your skin, and on your mouth? How the thought of being in that empty bed makes the hours till dawn seem innumerable?
And I wondered. Why do I crave her like I do? What is it about this woman that makes me nic for the uncomfortableness? Long for the way she makes me want to cover my face and pretend that kind of heartbreak's not possible. How in the same note, she makes me want to spread myself open and pray for that kind of pain. Because at least then, I would've at least had that kind of love.
And in the moments before sleep snatched me the answer crept into my brain. She came to life. I saw her, felt her, smelled her and I realized what it is about her, and about her music, that calms me. That whispers. It was all so clear.
I'm just a child. A young girl, lying in her bed. Crying over loneliness, boys, the madness of youth.
I sleep alone in the house. The windows open, the crickets serenading me with their classic lullaby. After the moon gets comfortable in her nightly post, my mother comes home, weary from work. She hears my sobs from down the hall and moves slowly toward me. I quietly try to shush myself. But my body is rocked with the kind of crying that comes with girlhood. Hiccupy. Tragic.
She sits beside me on the wrought-iron bed and I crawl toward her, laying my head in her lap. She says nothing; she just caresses my hair. She smoothes the tangled strands from my wet cheeks and breathes deep on her cigarette. Her dress smells of grease and southern fried cotton. I clench her skirt in my hand and breathe it in. Everything about her - her work, her love, her life. It comes off her skin like heat.
I look up at her face and her gaze is distant. She continues stroking my hair, humming quietly to calm me. Her face, illuminated by the moon, is hollow. I see only sharp features and patches of silver lit skin.
In her song, her quiet hum, I hear her.
Hush girl, hush.
Your road is long yet. The destination unknown. You've only begun to travel. Do you see me, ahead of you? Can you see the oak tree whose shade I shared? Where a boy loved me in the afternoon sun?
Do you see the creek where we splashed and played? On whose banks we drank moonshine and fed each other dewberries?
Do you see the porch where he told me goodbye? Do you see me sitting on the steps after he left? Do you see the tire tracks in the gravel road?
This is pain, child. This is loneliness. This is feeling like you can't go on. So you count your blessings girl, I'll just count on blue.
But it's a journey. One you don't want to miss. And when you reach that oak tree, when you splash in that creek, and when you cry on those old rickety stairs, and follow the tire tracks with your eyes for miles, I'll be there ahead of you.
And I'll show you the rest of the road. . . .
So it's because I know not of lost love. I don't know anything about that. I don't know what it's like to be jealous of the wind or the sun or the rain.
But I'm learning.
It creeps into me with every breath that comes out like a mother's quiet hum.
I gots no shame. I'll keep pimping till I get all you dear hearts on my notify list.