Iberia, IL

Iberia, IL
by
Jesse Mitchell


Some days are lightening bolts. Some days filled with super powered sparks, electric fire. Some days are the blizzard, snow white, blinding. The lights always above us, blazing bright as camera flash or dim and steady, subtle like candle flame…flicker flicker and fanning in the breeze. Today burning my neck and squinting up my eyes are the artificial long bulbs of fluorescent gas in the ever-widening supermarket aisle. I try in vain to quickly find the certain baby formula and escape out of this mercantile madness…the dreary death…the itching dearth…the dying breaths. I cannot say how I got to this place as I wring my hands together. I cannot know the paths that led me here out of the wilds of my life. But I have begun my song, my angel story, and now I must sang it…of the wild men and monsters in the memory forests of my mind.
My cart rattles as I push it down the aisle. Filled to the brim with ice cream, sponge bob band-aids, vitamins…I shake myself into mischief and daydream. Moving displays around…misplacing sign cards in their placards…anything to disturb. It makes me sigh.
Once I was wild as you America, once I was with you all…when we were all young…I was with you, together. You and I burning blood and oil, running like water, gasoline, breathing fire, tattoos in each and every town…the smell of smoke and noise and fresh ink, eating gravel, spitting asphalt. You and I, America, big booming Gypsy rain clouds filled with thunder and ice, spilling our rain around…making storm wherever we did wander. I was with you. And I imagine I still am. We are here together too.
My head hurts. My heart races. I have not slept in nights, not completely. The cries of an infant keeping my eyes peeled open. I move so slow now. I am no dead spirit however, like so many others, I still live. I am no ghost in denial. I am still every bit a part of the growth, the surging tide, the power of beauty. I am still live. A spark of fire, a hot coal, a moment of life, a warm breath.