In the Beginning

I slept in a crib until I grew out of it.

My older sister slept in her own room.

Mine was the living room, the room

that my nana trained us to call a “parlor.”

I would send myself to dream

seeing flecks of brain chemical colors

that mimicked the wallpaper

in my sleepy head, as it rested on the pillow

just underneath a picture of cats on a fence.

I hated school. If I was a Viking,

every grade would’ve been razed.

I didn’t like wearing new pants for

the first day. They came from the

“irregular” store, every item a mark-down.

How that starchy, un-broken-in fabric made me itch.

I learned to learn on my own.

My young mind was a chalk board

full of the cartography of a world that forgot

inner wisdom.

Every time I fell asleep, I was wide awake

and my soul grew like a giant. When I awoke,

I came back to a sicker body, forgotten

in a world that yawned when it spoke.

That’s why I turned to the drums:

That kept me awake.

I was often sick. But my illness

waited for me in “the future.”

Doctors, with thumbs in their mouths,

goo-goo-ga-ga-ing like suicidal baby dolls.

Drumming and words were my healing.

The unerasable spray paint.

The balm for my spirit.