First, it existed in simple terms: a crumbling street
with Easter-basket grass, a series
of phone wires past the wilted stop sign
leading to winding side streets untraveled by bike.
Mornings when the swamp
would grasp your neck with green
tightening tendrils, it filled your lungs
with fabric-softened breaths and cruel words, mousetraps,
and hand-me-down textbooks with doodled-in pages.
Soon it also breathes: Card tables
That a slammed-fist collapses, suitcases in the kitchen
and who-are-yous in reorganized bedrooms,
dead succulents, ugly cries, unannounced additions
to the Sunday church pew. Still though the tight-squeezed
home grows, and no longer defined by the crumbling street
and green glossy lawns, it follows its host’s
journey, haunts and hurts us with memories of
the trails of fabric softener, shared bubbles to burst,
and afternoons when you swore it had you trapped.
Rachel is a junior English and Public Relations double major from the suburbs of DC. In her free time, she dabbles in writing about music, covers various arts and entertainment events for The Underground and makes way too many Spotify playlists along the way. She draws much of her creative inspiration from observing her older siblings and listening to stories from her parents.