echoes of appalachia
Kerosene
The kerosene heater is warm
A soft orange glow flickers silhouettes on walls
Beckoning me close, radiating comfort
A familiar and strangely sweet smell
This new home was old and brittle
Much work needed to be done
Heat came mainly by warm glow of fire
The arrival of winter, kerosene sparks again
A child in blissful ignorance
I danced in the incandescent glow
Wrapped in the bulk of a blanket
I lie as close as courage could muster
My gaze floats along the heaters warning label
Drifting away into youthful dreams
I awake to a dizzy stir and pounding head
At the time I never understood why
Screen Doors
The screen door creaks open in cold winter
Carrying groceries through it, repeatedly
“I’m not paying to heat the outside” I hear distant
She stands idly while I squabble back and forth
Defiance leaves the body, I hurry to be done
The cold bites through gloves as I work
Shovels and salt scratch still time endlessly
The screen door screeches a scream in vacant air
“There better be no snow when you’re done”
And I know you mean it
The morning air is sharp and dry
The screen door shuts closed with a loud whack
“I know you’re faking it, you better be on that bus”
I stumble through snow with a cloudy head
Later, a nurse sends me home
What would it take to only listen
To remove the walls of a Matriarchs castle
To tear down the screen and see with lucidity
We viewed each other through screen doors
Two different worlds away
Oh, Appalachia
An old door frame silhouettes
The front porch of an ancient home
Duplexes project a golden era long past
Black soot collects upon their windowsills
Like the snow of a cold, harsh winter
No apple pie waits for you there
Instead, the aroma of burning rubber wafts
The bent road sign, a pothole the cause
Roads abandoned like families who grew here
At the dinner table, ideology is served
Gods are made of men
Carelessly they pack up industry
A region left jobless overnight
The hills rise up like bars of a cage
Trapping those left behind
Oh, Appalachia
A town in a coma, sleeping quietly
Rust and soot take over gradually
It continues to collect slowly
As the residents dream of days long past
Sinister
In this land where I was born
Something cold and sinister is brewing
Hearts of black like lungs of ancestors
Generations of snuffed out kindness
A passing street, a dirty look
“Mind your own business” the clerk whispers
Smiles less common than skill games
Paychecks disappear like hopes for a better life
The town known only for destruction
In a land known for the much of the same
Yet both have affected the people here
How lucky am I to have escaped this fate
My home in which I feel least welcome
I pay for my gas and walk away
Flags decorate the streets with abundance
Pride for that which has given them nothing
Railroad Street
The exit of 219 brings about strong feeling
A theme song of home like trumpets of surrender
Although I live far, still in-between
Emotions flow like creeks and tunnels
Following along the view, Railroad Street
Down the sulfur crick and through the valley
A scenery so grey, meant to be beautiful
I see childhood through landscape
Packed bags and an emptied room
Leaving my hometown, hoping never return
I saw only hate in a land of darkness
Distanced myself and swore off culture
I grew and changed, my eyes now shifted
From the scowl of hatred to the soft of sadness
Reasons for which hate has fostered
People whose struggle was never ending
Found myself in songs of ancestors
Complicated stirrings of heritage
I see you now with clarity
For I am coming home
