I’m just passing through to give my condolences. Towns and miles and a whole state away, and still- I can’t fucking stand it. Smell the coal burning from the tops of hills and my tongue was charred. Grit in my teeth. Taste the smoke from breathing in that sort of air. The men look angry and I wish them well with my dark eyes- one told me they were black as coal. Saw the fever running up his arms and kept walking and walking and walking. I’m just passing through to give my condolences. Stop me where the part of my town meets with the exit of this place- I need some familiarity. I just came around to give my condolences and even that made my neck cave in and my spine lurch forward like a hook- I don’t like looking up much when I’m around here. I don’t like the their trees. I don’t like anything at all.

The cornfields sway with each gust of wind- like they’re praying for some sort of relief. Stretching limbs to a sky that won’t grant their plea. I don’t have the heart to tell them they’ll be planted there forever. I keep driving as they wave goodbye in the distance. Until they become nothing but a blur. It’s all mystical, you know. People planted and planted and they rose and rose.

The road gets steep and I keep both hands on the wheel- time means nothing around here. The woman at the gas station told me that the nighttime looks strange with a girl like me walking around here past midnight.

Told her I was passing through. Told her I was passing through. Told her I was passing through to give my condolences.

She asked me if I knew the girl that recently died- said she saw the stories splattered across the local paper. Said it’s a tragedy created by a linage of men who couldn’t stop drowning in spirits, so they ended up creating their own ghosts- said the girl was nothing but another character to the story of this place. Said the wolves come out when they’re hungry and all we can do is hide. I wish she knew that I love to hunt.

I think my lungs are too tired and my brain is tangled in knots- but I know the balance between what’s safe and what not. I keep going as adrenaline reminds me of where I’m at. And even though these winding roads have a way of twisting you around until you can’t see straight- I keep my eyes fixed on the streetlights.

I’m from the sharp edges of the dark skies that glaze this town in an eerie hue.

I’m just passing through. Nothing more. It’s all I’m here for. To give my condolences and carry myself back to the place that healed me.

Home is what you make of it and this place burned my memories like the coal they need and love and die for. It’s nothing but grit debris and people who talk too loudly when newcomers dare to enter. Licking their lips like a promise. I reach for the moon and get a handful of stars. This has to mean something, I’m sure of it.

I’m just passing through to give my condolences, but it’s not sitting right within the belly of my storm.

I feel the hurricane in my bones and turn around. Greet the sign of the town with a middle finger. Finish the story for all the women who were forced to put down their pen in blood soaked ink. I guess this is what it made of me. AMT