Dirty Dirty South

O' how I love you

and yet the way you've scarred me

has left me bruised in more ways than one

not one of them was physical...

well unless you count the summers

I spent down Uncle’s house wrestling with my cousin

and jumping on and off the trampoline all those youthful years ago.

O’ how I love you

And yet the way you’ve scarred me

has left me bruised in more ways than one

I think I can recall most of them

after all, they’re the kind you can’t see,

you just feel them

when the pain comes and goes now and again

when you think back, ya know?

See you’ve always been careful

to make your morals and establish your rules.

While they mean well

like most things in the world

men have taken them and twisted them

Similar to how they conjured their meanings

of what real relationships look like

and made it a cinematical

and made religion about...well that’s a topic for another time?

See you’ve always been careful

to make your morals and establish your rules

and men haven’t always understood them

and as a result, they’ve abused them…

abused me…

abused law…

abused minds and the habits of common, good folk

who were just ignorant.

Similar to how it’s okay,

here in the dirty dirty South,

to work your hardest, go home, eat, sleep, and do it all again the next day

but never mind your family, your wants, and dreams it’s all work no play.

Similar to how it’s okay,

here in the dirty dirty South

to go home, kiss our wife, go out on the weekends and be a rolling stone

‘cause that’s what Papa’s do when that’s all he knows to be done.

Similar to how it’s okay,

here in the dirty dirty South

for your kids who can’t understand

what it’s like to create and juggle a social life

and school

and sports

and their hormones

and life at home

but it’s okay for the girl to date a man five years her senior

like that isn’t statutory rape?

They all think this is ok

because these are the unspoken morals and rules

of the dirty dirty South

that no one bothers to correct

but we let it all hit play

like on an old DVD Player, ‘

but we’ve forgotten there aren’t any Rewind and Fast Forward buttons in life.

Hell,

It’s no wonder

I craved the city lights

before I could feel its glow on my skin

and it’s no wonder I missed them

when I felt like I had to leave.

At least she understands

there isn’t a Rewind or a Fast Forward button in life

only the Play button,

and like the movies,

our lives are on borrowed time

and there isn’t a second you can get back in any day.

I told her I’d return

and I did just under different circumstances...

And those circumstances are scheduled

for another poem

on a different page

under its story name.

O’ how I love you

And yet you’ve scarred me

But you see I have loved you

because you have helped raise me.

You gave me a grandmother

whose love was as old fashioned as your morals,

Who’s discipline was as rigid as your rules

And while it nearly broke me

It helped build pieces of who I’d become,

You made me hardworking,

You made me honest,

You made me sincere,

You made me Christian,

You made me love,

These have all been lessons

made by your morals and established by your rules

followed by good people

followed by bad people

and that’s why I say

that these things have left me scarred

in one form or another

for good or bad,

for better or worse,

I have been hurt

but they’ve also healed me.