I was an exception to the phrase "we were all born with a voice" I was born a mute, had it not been for my mother pressing her lips to mine and passing on her voice I would have walked this earth in silence. But my mother felt she had said enough in this lifetime and gave me a chance to shout from the rooftops and whisper to the ones I love. She spent the rest of her days scribbling on napkins and pressing her lips to my ears so they could feel her secrets.

When I was nothing but a small child I would chew on the tips of my fingers in hopes that one day I would grow up to a be a good boy. I wanted to grow up and stand straight while me and my wife served snacks to the crowd. But I was born in a different world and grew up with a bowed back. pockets full of phone numbers and the sin of other woman beneath my nails. I hid my passion in wooden boxes buried beneath the house and on the nights I held her hand I held back tears while I thought of how you ran from your mother and sent letters down the river..

He practiced the gospel every chance he got, turning the other cheek to feel the lips from the neighbors wife. He was known by many, but not in the way you and I would like to be known. The townspeople knew him as the man who rummaged through their mail, opening private letters from overseas, birthday cards and the occasional pre-approved credit card, looking to strike some sort of fire in his dried up heart. By law this is a capital offense but nobody had the heart to turn him in. They let him live vicariously through their lives, there was even an older man who would write the occasional letter full of scandalous acts for him, and it wasn't a surprise to see half a sandwich bundled up behind the readers digest. Visiting family and friends wondered why the townspeople put up with such nonsense and even in a small way enabled it, but nobody had an answer. It was an unwritten law, a sort of code one would say. They never turned their backs to a fellow man, even if he had wronged them in every which way possible. They were just common folks, no different than you and I, they read the same books as us and laughed at the television just like we do, they had their secrets, hidden taboos under the bed sheets and dark pasts but they were just better at keeping it hidden than him. And maybe that's why they tolerated his ways, because deep down he was more honest then everyone one of them, he put it out for everyone to see. And whether we admit it or not, all of us truly want that...to be completely honest with the world no matter the cost.

We were raised in a house of superstition, brother and I. Always putting the left shoe on first, keeping a bucket of buckeyes under the foot of our bed, or never breaking a twig on the Sabbath. Small things to the eyes of the world, but in our parents eyes these small traditions or superstitions kept the universe in tact. Folks felt sorry for us on account of our families odd habits but i'll be honest with you. We had a good home life, if the biggest thing they fussed about was us leaving our closet door open while the sun was still up I'd say we were pretty lucky, considering how rough others had it. I knew a boy in grade school who'd come to school beat to kingdom come just because he walked in front of his daddy. Growing up I questioned a lot, as most kids do. But I never heard my friends asking why they couldn't brush their teeth between 6:45 and 7:15. Mom and dad would sit me and my brother down and start to tell us about how the world used to be, how people took reverence in the small things and kept the world in order. But those ways were leaving, people lost their reverence and the ways of old were all but forgotten. And these traditions they were teaching us, silly as they may seem were greater than we could ever imagine, in a way they were keeping the universe alive. Now you tell two little boys that keeping two nickles in their back pockets is saving the universe, you better believe they never left the house without two worn down nickles. And even today, twenty-two years later I still got two nickles in my pack pocket. And I guarantee if you looked in that casket you'd find two nickles under mom and a bucket of buckeyes at her feet. Cause even on her way to the grave she stood by her beliefs, dad and brother were the same way. And the day someone is standing over me, talking about how I kept my bottom button undone or never broke a twig on the Sabbath I hope i'm just like my mom and dad. Going to the grave with nickles in my back pockets and knowing my family did they best they could to make the universe a better place.

And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels...

Since the day of my birth I have been sick. A bafflement to the medical fields, I have a rare condition with no name and no history of it happening to anyone else. The place I was born is where I have to spend the rest of my life, luckily I was born in fathers study and not some cold over lit hospital. My steps have been limited by a house, and the farthest my eyes will ever see is out of sixteen windows. I have no visitors nor do I have any friends. When I became older and more aware of what my future held I started to write my dreams, thoughts, made up memories anything that came to my mind on the palms of my hands. At night I would offer to rub my sisters feet, my palms pressing against her foot letting her heels soak up every word. Sister never wore shoes when she left the house, her bare feet felt meadows, river beds, the cobblestone of the town below and even the shop floors where she defied all "no shoes no service" laws. And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels, soaking into the earth, collecting in the corner with dust or washing down streams. I was bound to four walls but my words had no boundaries. My nightmares were soaked into the flowers that men picked for the gals. Every made up friend was collected in the dust between stones. The fields sister ran through were now plowed, upturning all my thoughts. Seeds were planted and mighty rows of crops were produced. Corn with memories of my first made up kiss, tomatoes full of secrets about mothers hidden liquor bottle in the medicine cabinet. Potatoes holding witness to the first time I saw mother and father fight. Every ocean in the world had a piece of me in it. The creek beds riddled with the images of my father passing away and how sister sat in the corner not saying a word, just shaking her legs. Eager to run away, eager to spread my words. She had no idea that her heels were writing to the world, the morning before they put her in the ground I wrote to her. Telling her all that she had done for me, thanking her. I'm not sure what happened to those words, maybe they soaked into the casket and kept her company while she passed over. Maybe a few even touched heavens floor, I like the thought of them saints soaking me up. I have no one to spread my words now, mother will occasionally go out and i'll sneak a few secrets on her. But most of the time it's just me, writing on anything I can find. So when I pass on over and they burn this old house down, the wind will pick up the ashes and this little girl who never left the house will touch every corner of the world.

Ole tub water

We used to fill up that old tub in the back and share the bath water, when folks heard word of it they made a fuss but we defended ourselves. Saying "Ah, we're just saving some water, no need in wastin' two tub fulls" But truth is. We were scared. We were scared of washing off our sins alone, so we shared that tub. Scrubbing at every little sin we could find, and if some were to stick back on our bodies when we got out..well, that'd be fine, cause we'd be carrying them together. And Lord knows we could use all the help we can get.

Evelyn made sure the sleeves of her sweater or the hems of her skirt never rose up around the other children in school. She wasn’t ashamed of her skin, Evelyn used to sit in the tub on the nights she was allowed to use water admiring the fairness of her skin. But that was before her mother started losing things. That was before Evelyn sat up at night pulling off the sins and memories that stuck to the bottom of her mothers foot. Ones that had slid off her body without her knowing or even if she did know she no longer had the strength to hold onto memories or sins. Not after the “storm”. Not after the night her mother came home crying with two men from the Police station all wrapped up in a blanket and led to her bed to sleep the storm away. Evelyn didn’t want to overhear the Policeman as they left, but a child’s ear is a mysterious thing. “I’ve seen her before, she never was a lady of the evening..but she also never favored the mornings.” Evelyn’s ears made no sense of what they heard and that was for the best. A child’s ear has no need for ignorant words. She stayed up with her storm battered mother, reciting her poems, singing made up songs and counting the hairs on her head. Now things are much more complex, her mother never recovered from the storm. She lost all her memories, the humanity of sin, the grace that lived in her. It was falling off her as she walked, washed off her wrists when she scrubbed the same dish for 20 minutes. But Evelyn walked behind her, slept at the edge of her bed and drained the tub for her. Collecting all the memories, grace and sin that she so unwillingly lost. Evelyn saved her lunch money for a ink and quill set so she could take all things lost and write them between her thighs, under her arms. Covering all her flesh with her mother in hopes that one day she would want it all back. And if not..she would walk this earth with her mother on her skin…