Saccahrine Entree

originally published by Little Somethings Press.


There’s a place where I don’t much fit. It’s not rich, or poor, but somewhere in between. This is home, where unread opinions pass over the dinner table with the butter. We’re not LA folks nor are we New Yorkers. Here, in the center of the country, pressed against mountains, a decent city, and farmland there is no neatly defined culture. We’re a compound; pieces collected along the American way. We don’t drink wine, we hardly drink beer.

Christmas is overdone, we say we won't, but do it anyway. The family clutter feels like a grease rag on a hot engine. We have dogs, all too many and they’re shouted at for barking, as if they know more noise should hush them. Blaring televisions scatter through the house all tuned to various channels. We fall asleep with them on. It causes deafness, making the next day’s volume louder. Though I have a room tucked in the den, I hear them each night like clipped-winged angels reminiscing in the attic.

I’m pushed toward quiet and lifestyle, to tradition and the wine. Though, when I get somewhere you might find in a travel blog——somewhere you’d never find my kin——well, I don’t much fit there either.