I miss Texas - My family fighting,
The smell of the hot concrete,
That full-bladed grass and the fire ants
The southern drawl and the heavy air-
Sticky and slow like molasses
Down where you nap through the heat of the day
And eat fried chicken, corn and mashed taters for dinner
Playing in sprinklers and
Patios made of tiny rocks,
Acorns and sunflowers and furniture
That weathered the great depression and WWII
The little creek, the metal slide in the middle of July,
Those mcDonalds toys one grandma collected
One grandpa bouncing me on his knee
The other taking me to the zoo
And great grandma playing scrabble,
Those baby pictures of my dad,
Back in a place where I would've culturally said "pa"
Sometimes I miss it all back in Texas,
Sometimes I say I'll never miss it,
Now that I see how grandma's a racist, family don't believe in LGBT,
In liberals, in me
But then I think I've lied
I just miss Texas from back when I was too young to notice,
And before everyone died.