Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up falling asleep to the sound of a box fan in the window. I’ll stop at any fruit stand that’s selling boiled peanuts. There aren’t many bodies of water that I won’t swim in. My family history is sordid, but it doesn’t define who I am. But, more important than any of that: it isn’t the heat, it’s the gosh-darned humidity.
Youth Grouping
The boy-child came into his own, sprouted up near-bout forty paces past that place where so-described music would convey a deeper soul than what the Bible Teacher could ever make sense of. Growing up meant finding out just How Far was Too Far and becoming a man was just so many and much losses.
Home, a place to mix flesh with feelings. And guilt. And just a small amount of experience. Even still, it could not feel like the place that his father left, where boy-child would have to become head of house. Near-bout where so much noise reflected the pain of.
So the story goes, at least. Boy-child became a man-child, according to Southern Standards set forth by those who would set such standards on the shoulders of the uninitiated. He split himself between two places. A fence was more than symbol and the division was not merely symbolized. Right there, in between what was near-bout forty paces. Man to one side, child to another.
Man lived in a dim room. He kept the window shade drawn, to prevent guilt and light from mixing too terribly much. Man felt alive in the rush of feeling, the complication of grown-up things, the scent of hiding it all. The name of G_d was muttered in ecstasy. In defiance. In pain of the doing. He was right near-bout heaven, right close on up to hell.
Child lived in a gray box, surrounded by green-and-brown buzzing and gossamer. The box contained his noises: grinding sounds, clashing sounds. The name of G_d was screamed, ripping throats in praises of forgiveness-seeking. Church halls were hollow and looming, but the box wrapped the child up, full of the things no one else could-would-wanted to provide. The child felt alive in passion, in an imitation of creation, singing as Eru Ilúvatar did. Dancing as the Valar must have. And it was near-bout violence, right close on up to beauty.
Man-child lived this way for a lifetime of short years. Man when he needed to feel close and hidden, child when he wanted the world to see how different he could be. Man must have been near-bout a spider. Fine lies he spun to compensate for the loss settling in. Man wrapped those lies around his morsel and around child. And then around his own self and then around a beam. And hung there. The lies were strong and held fast. And he hung there, with no escape but to cut the cord.
Child wasn’t near-bout being anything other than scared. Caught only by a predator of his own making. In due time, child did escape the web. Got brave and cut the cord himself, plummeting from the beam, flailing in the darkness of future. And landed, soft.
Next to the man who was him and who he was. No longer divided, since they never really were.
