"You want to look at this? Get him something?" My mother gestured toward a catalog lying open on the table.

I thought about the box in the back of her closet. A decade's worth of gifts waiting to be wrapped.

For the first and last time, I told her no.

Small hands grasp at fraying rope. Tiny cries tumble through frigid air. I reach out for the child dropping down the cliffside. She screams. I watch. She crashes. I sob. I think to run. She is gone, and the thought of her crumpled body is too much to bear. The cold wind whispers to me and robs me of doubt. Go, it insists. Fate follows down the mountain trail.

The moon, ambivalent. Mockery and encouragement are for me alone to find. I take my descent through darkened trees, whiplashed by foliage. I know what I've seen. What I believe to be true. The wind cares little for my inconsistency.

My splitting shoes skid on the rock face as it bleeds into browning grass. A contorted figure shudders amidst the wilting wildflowers. The breeze moves softly, arrogant in its perceptiveness, and pushes me toward the jutting angles.

Bloodshot eyes flash open at my arrival. The little girl gasps with stolen life, and tugs at my dress with a stained yet unbroken hand. I lean down, and as our cheekbones graze together in the moonlight, she whispers into my frozen ear. Silently, I think her to be a fool. Breathlessly, she implies that I am one.

I lift her body into my arms and imagine myself a mother carrying her young to bed. Icy earth crunches beneath my weighted feet. The moon shrinks behind a slender, viscous cloud, reluctant in its illumination. Mountains guard us on each side, urging me to walk with purpose. The child rests her head upon my shaking breast and watches me closely, blind faith behind her drooping eyelids.

The wind ceases, and spares us a moment free from its knowing.

The thick ones were the worst

full of wax, they fought the comb

Tangled, jagged memories

pulled from a greasy brush

You were different then--

lazy days on the stairwell

infectious laughter

floating through the breezeway

I collected fragments of our youth

and bound them to dense vines

hanging heavy from my skull

but the weight of you,

the weight of youth

sepia days filtered by rose

had to wither, seek refuge

in the box upon your mother’s mantle

That silent smile,

was that a final trace of you?

A trace of youth

Water rushes across my tender scalp

and I wonder if you

felt this same relief, this same release

My reflection stares back,

dark ringlets uneven and dry

from well-intentioned neglect

The reflection, she notices

my hair hasn’t been this short

since we were kids

broken tooth, jagged jaw

my bite is weak, neglected

I scratch a finger through the dust

clutch gravel in cracked palms

a storm churns in the distance

muted, familiar crashing

a fingernail snaps, flies away

tribute for the flashing clouds

weariness tugs at the bone,

fills the sockets in my gums

weighted memory, regret

useful things, they return

Daddy had no intention of changing his lifestyle. He was in too deep. The dying sizzle of an oil-slicked pan made my stomach churn.

"Still a stroke waiting to happen," he mused. A newly lit Pall Mall was smoking in the ashtray, waiting for him to finish guzzling his beer. Miller Lite washed along his crooked teeth. Only ninety-six calories, the bottle bragged. He was on his third one. It had been a lazy day.

Ketchup melts into the checkered red of the plastic tray. I swat at a fly insistent on landing on the condiments.

A housefly lives for twenty-eight days. What is sixty years compared to that?

I set out on this mission, hand filled with hubris. It was destiny, I assumed-- though obligation is probably more apt-- that pushed me into this eneavor. I did not expect the pushback, at least not to the degree in which I was met. Still, I chose to sail on. The seas have softened some and I have chosen to trust that the destination will be worth the endless hours of sun that has beaten my brow.

I land upon the familiar shoreline and find it in a state of muted chaos. Hastily fashioned rafts lie stagnant in the sand, weather-worn bags filled with pottery strung lazily atop the rotting wood. I lift a faded vase into the burning sun, eyeing its engravings with darkened nostalgia. For a moment, I think back to the merchant cities I was so eager to leave. They were a place where I could sever the binding of my youth but their vapid, alien ways led me to crave the warmth of the sand on which I'd grown. In all my lofty fantasies, I had forgotten how the granules burned my feet, how the shells sliced through my calloused heels.

I roam along the Eastern shore, and spot the opening of a cave in the rock face. Familiar notes pouring from the jagged entryway but are quickly carried along the shifting breeze and melt into the rustling of the trees. A siren song for tepid dreams. I fish a torch and match from my sack, and float into the cave, a sense of duty swelling within my chest.

The cave is cold and damp. Curious for an island so warm, though I find a suspicious sense of intimacy in each descending step. The distant dripping of stalactites grows louder, and I emerge into a vast room shaped patiently by the hands of a greater force. I peer into the water pooling on the cavern floor and find that my face has aged. My face has grown gaunt, and subtle lines have crept beneath my dimming eyes. My once ample lips, revered by lovers in softer, more tender moments, are now dry and pale. Clotted blood fills every painful crack and my resting smile has fallen into a gentle frown. Fixation is a dangerous distraction. There is more to be found. I break my concentration and move forward.

I step gently between the stalagmites, trekking further into the labyrinth. My pathway splits in two. Unthinking, I follow the path to the left. I stumble through the tunnel and emerge to face a grotto. I raise my torch and am met with glimmering lights bouncing back from within the darkness of the cave. As I move further into the room, I trip and fall onto the damp cavern floor. My torch remains lit, and I move it closer to the ground so I can identify my saboteur, brazenly reaching out for my assailant. I pull my hand back into the light and am met with the empty eyes of a skull staring blankly into mine. I scan the torch across the grotto to discover complete skeletons lying undisturbed, each frozen into their final position. The glimmers bounce back once more and I set the skull onto the slick rock to follow the nearest glimmer. The twinkling in my eye begins to blind, but I crouch to get a closer look. I find a skeletal hand clinging desperately to a chain and hanging from the chain, a sapphire set in gold. The charm is engraved with symbols I have not seen since my youth. Dark nostalgia strikes once more. I pry the chain from its bony cage and set it gently in my satchel.

I step over the other skeletons, losing interest in the jewels adorning nearly every corpse. Bags of pottery, like the ones on the rafts, are also littered amongst the bodies. As I approach the edge of the room, I am faced with strange scrawling on the wall. A waterlogged notebook lies at my feet, nearly destroyed by the environment. I pick it up tenderly, and attempt to go through its pages. There is little I can make out and the coarseness of my fingers tears at the fragile pages. I pull a cloth from my bag, gently wrap the book up and place it with my rest of my items. I turn my attention back to the markings on the wall. They are crude but legible, written in a broken form of the language spoken on the island for generations. The words tell of a tragic story, of a people unprepared for the will of the gods. A storm approached, arrived more quickly than expected and ravaged the entirety of our villages. Those who tried to escape on the rafts were taken by the elements. Those who survived, took all they had left and sought refuge in the grotto. Fearful of the angered spirits, they remained in the caverns, forever unsure of how they'd failed their deities.

I stand at the grotto's edge and scan the scene before me. Did they know that the storm had come to its end? Did they try to look? Or was the fear of another storm so strong that they refused leave the grotto? In any case, there was no thought that they could begin again. This was their one and only refuge. A place for the waves to crash and then release. I take comfort in the cycles that have no need to be broken. I am forced to honor the ones that do.

My torch begins to flicker. Though I have more matches, I take this as a sign to depart. I look over the room once more, and mourn the desperation of my ancestors. There was a time when I believed wisdom to be the lack of foolish, fearful behavior. I realize now that the two are always present- one simply takes lead of the other.

I chose to leave in happier times, eager to see the world that lay beyond the beaches. I was young when I took off into the murky sea. My elders sent me off with no more than food and platitudes. There was no anger, but no enthusiasm either. Simply quiet understanding and unspoken concern. It was wanderlust that pushed me along, and exhaustion that brought me home. But home was not the same, and it had not been for many years. It is likely I will return one day, perhaps at a time where the visions of today begin to fade.

I emerge into the familiar sun, unsure of how long I'd been in the depths. There is little for me here, less than I could have fathomed. I spot the vase I discovered upon my landing lying solemnly in the sand. I pick it back up, grateful for the warmth it absorbed while I traversed the dank caverns. I place it in my bag with the necklace and ailing notebook. It appears as if time is still on my side, so I set out onto the waters once more. I drag my boat onto the packed, watery sands and step inside. I kick my oar into the shallow water and allow the current to pull me into the easy waters. A voice within tells me to release the anxiousness of the journey ahead; there is no need to fear the storms.

In the way I trip over old cords that lead nowhere, this is the way you trip over dusty dreams, machinations of projects and harder times in which you would whisper "I told you so" to the generations who told you it was too much-- though in three decades time, they came to see the virtue of your ways, but me, no I am the demon, yes I am the creature who dares to call the old book trash, who renounces the water stained furniture, who blames the structure's problems on shoddy uncle-brother-neighbor craftmanship from people who knew much less than they'd admit, I am the beast who speaks of yard sales and thrift stores, of moving shelves, the cannibal calling professionals over relatives, who roars at unannounced visitation, the wicked banshee lording over the thermostat while holding sweaty, screaming children, wounded messenger crying out-

I am the monster

come to feast on broken homes

Nostalgia, it weeps

The handle burns my fingers, I curse, wrap my hand in my shirt and kick the door open

Who the FUCK

gets a metal door

in South Carofuckinglina?

The fire-hot handle interlocks with the knob of a poorly placed coat closet, I wrestle it free with misaligned angst

Who built

this place-

Pablo fuckin’ Picasso?

I scan the house, some sense of duty or obligation suffocates the grooves of my brain, God there’s shit everywhere, it’s all trash, I’m calling it now

Corridors of crap-

Graveyard of coulda,

shoulda, woulda.

Post-war children, they say ‘just in case’, but case never comes, never did, never will

No pictures hung-

No, of course

THAT’D be too much.

The bedrooms, bathroom, basement, dusty and covered with mold, bet I could make an asbestos angel in the attic, maybe I can fix this, maybe there’s hope, maybe I can save our souls

The hell-?

Are the doors

fucking MELTING?

No no no no no no what kind of sick Stephen King bullshit is this

I swear to God I’m not like them, I actually like to dust the blades of fans, I would never use plastic this long, I loved Marie Kondo’s book, you’re never supposed to use plastic that long, WHERE ARE THE GODDAMN TRASH BAGS, I swear I can stop it I can make it better GODDAMN IT DON’T LEAVE ME HERE, THIS DOES NOT SPARK JOY

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT FOR ME

"This time, sixty-six years ago, I was nineteen, three thousand miles away from my mother and in labor. The doctors said the baby wasn't coming until later that afternoon, so Papa went ahead to service. Baby came while he was gone"

I looked over Jordan

The air in the house on Birchwood was thick

"I rode on his shoulders all the way home. Knew it would be the last time I saw him. Train ran him over on the way back. Then Grandmamma remarried, just like I saw it"

What did I see?

I never told him about my dream

"Happy birthday" cried the shell of Georgianne

Coming for to carry me home

Twenty-one, a month away

It’s the way wind moves through the chimes regardless of the breeze

A band of angels coming after me

Exhaustion nestles within fading eyes

The wall is marked from where she leans, dark dye refusing to fade, I scrub at it in vain

Coming for to carry me home

Swing low, sweet chariot