Secretions from the past (just a beginning)

Upon leaving the alcove I was born in___ I could hear the faint hiss, what feels so long ago___ boarding the train in Birmingham, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. The most disgusting station I’ve ever seen was the first, leading to the worst stretch of train ride I’ve ever experienced. It was on way to my great grandmother’s centurion birthday party___ that gloomy November I remember so clearly. Not until after exiting Georgia did it become a tolerable pleasure at best. Sleeping on a wooden pew in a ratty station boarders were suggested not to leave in Charlottesville; I was there for six hours in the middle of the night, waiting for a train ride which would only take three hours. Only to face the drive from North Carolina to South Carolina, w/ an undiagnosed infection devouring my reproductive organs. I had to be there though, & take the first part of the journey alone. To hear the sound, that hiss grow louder, which as it comes closer resembles the whisper of death’s scythe. That December___ my great grandmother died a legend in my mind. Today, when I hear the whispering swish get louder, I pick up the phone in tears & scream “Take me to her grave! NOW!” At her grave I sing & dance for her, & the rest of the family. For the little still-born whose grave is right next to great grandmother’s & great grandfather’s___ to just a step back, which leads to Native American heritage of unmixed blood. Where is that blood now? Only sections run through my veins. I remember though & I know. I know the swing & swish, the whisper of secrets I cannot tell. Secrets only death knows in full & feeds just a trickle when my spirit rounds corners & expands further___ in order to see what previously could not have been perceived. I miss them, but I know I am not separated from them___ at all.