Rough Draft

Oklahoma, some years ago.

I was listening to a song, Grandmother by Big Thief and it was raining! It was windy and I was driving home in the late evening, not quite night yet. The sunset was fighting through the heavy clouds and I had my windows down, all four. My hair was down and it was getting so tangled but I liked the humidity on my skin and wanted to just feel it. My hair was a little damp, not directly from the rain, just from the air. But it was beautiful. When the weather is like that I think of that scene in Eragon (the book duh) where they are crossing the Great Plains during a storm. The way Paolini described the clouds was so real. I think I could never write like that. And people say he’s a hack. Anyway, Grandmother. 

Mine died a few years ago and it was important. I didn’t know it at the time but it still holds on to me. That song brings it back up, like root beer from a soda fountain (iykyk). I wanted to write about it, I always want to write. I wrote fanfiction, tried to write an autobiography, like to write Instagram captions, and just generally always have a damn thing to say.

Part of me gets embarrassed, like I don’t have the most dismal following on Instagram and less friends than family, like those folks don’t literally know me and how I am already. Scoff! But it’s embarrassing to be naked on stage and that's what it’s like on the socials these days. But I am a bit voyeuristic, in a secret way. I like the idea of showing a little skin and imagining that nobody will see. Maybe they will, who knows. If they do notice, they have to be part of my little corner of the universe and they don't just get there by accident. It’s a flirt! They had to be seeing, like I do. Makes me want to kiss life on the mouth. 

I wanted to write a poem, and I wanted to share it with my small group of watchers, hidden in plain sight where others wouldn't deign to look. If they did, they probably would think it’s cringe. I don’t really care about being cringe. I just pretend I do and then be cringe anyway. How else do you explain my behavior in 2024?

No more of that pretending. I want the type of people who flirt with the universe to find me and we can all look at the moon and overanalyze Heated Rivalry together or whatever the hell is important then. It is time for me to create a corner where I can be together and alone, far away from confused grandparents and long-forgotten exes.

So, welcome!

-Sara.

Grandmother

Rediscovering the magic of the open road late one night in the early autumn during a strong rainstorm. 

Lightning hurried across the wide Texas sky and I looked at it in wide wonder. 

I had the windows down, all the way. Let the wind and the water course over and through.

Water fell down hard from on high, sheets upon sheets of rain like a mother and her mother and her mother.

Over on that side, may they dance loose. 

The rain in the car, a wild-tame animal in the car, a wild animal outside.