Liberation

A Collaborative Effort With walkerjo lee |Music: Outkast--Liberation

He comes —

sits real calm-like next to Daddy, puffs out a heap of smoke and says, "Gotta make a decision, Tony. We bulldozing through this city block with or without your consent."

I watch Daddy’s eyes turn cold, he can’t sit, can’t stand, he just looks frozen in time. the man in the perfect hat pats my Daddy’s leg once, then lifts himself from our porch swing, a trail of smoke follows him down the block, connecting his lies as it forms.

Daddy gives me a quick smile, reassuring me. he isn't a big man, short and thin. he looks like time swaying in the breeze, waiting for a lifeboat that's never coming his way. he tells me that the Big Wigs are making us move, taking our home from up under us.

"We got thirty days, Pumpkin." and, I don't know where we gonna go, but I hear my Mom's soul sigh in the dead of night. if she was still alive, she'd cut that man in the perfect hat with her words and tell him where he can stick his ideas.

A strip mall. that's what they're building. fifteen homes on our block and three on the next will be demolished in a matter of days. I sit and think of that smoke and how it followed the man in the perfect hat and I wonder if it's gonna come back without him one day and liberate us.

thirty days to go and no new home in view wanting to stay knowing it’s time to leave sights set on tomorrow

get a new home that fit our porch swing a patch of dirt to grow bundles of greens mom’s energy nearby while i pick and pull from the stems she keeps a watchful eye over me while i soak and rinse in the kitchen sink dandelions in the kitchen window daddy’s head hangs over the daily news

we beat the thirty days we walk at our pace no new development looming near.

daddy gives me that quick smile a sway in the breeze, he stands on a sunday afternoon a dream memory of my mom, she stands beside us in between daddy washes his hands and opens the oven door our home smells of roasting meat that time, mom had me snapping fresh peas our family, as whole as can be before

home was home, our yard had a tree swing lay mom to rest, our three turned into a two all our memories stuffed into a one bedroom daddy on the sofa i have a door with a window view of a toxic factory

maybe, a strip mall in our place won’t be so bad mom would have the paper preparing for our new home.

i smile daddy’s quick smile, turn to the real estate section we sit in the sun i reassure him this time dream big enough for us both sure we won’t see the man with the perfect hat gone before he returns it is time and we will go

i know one strip mall where we won’t shop

©Tremaine L. Loadholt & Walker Jo Lee, 2018. All Rights Reserved

*There are far too many collaborative efforts of ours to list here, but here’s our most recent. Thank you for reading.