Driving east on Mission Gorge

I am driving home from the store. East on

Mission Gorge. It’s spring and the air is

dry and my throat is dry. And I am so

something bigger than anger I start to cry.

From the pretense of it all, the big-toothed

smiling cashier in her green apron asking

her obligatory hi how are you and all I

could offer was a half-baked Mona Lisa

non-scowl. How could she know how are you

is a dangerous questions today because

I just might answer the truth, but what is

the truth, the whole truth and nothing

but the truth, is a version of the truth still

the truth? A truth swallowable? A truth that

protects your children from details? From

people they have never met, from people

who never should have…but what is should?

There shouldn’t be a war, but there is. Over

there and that is why I am here. I’ve become

so good at telling myself truths I can weave

in between stories of queen-goddess-warrior

survival…look at what you’ve accomplished

despite…pat yourself on the back you’re a

winner…what an example…that I forgot.

To remember. The parts shoved down. My

throat. And now my throat is scratchy and

my chest is heavy and I can say if they ask,

oh it’s just beginning of a cold, but this is

not the beginning of a cold. The is a sickness

decades in the making. And now all I want

is scalding hot coffee with a dollop of honey to

sweeten a bit the way down. I don’t want a

version of the truth, there is no one no more

to protect save me and I have no need no more

for my trickery. I am driving home, east on

Mission Gorge, dotted with cacti. White and

soft. Bending in toward each other.