In 2005
my father,
a pastor,
decided that we would house
victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
Our beds would be given
to the ones
whose homes
had been submerged
in water
and humanity.

Kitty and Minnie
were twins
who slept with me every night.
I was only a child,
but I felt like a mother
to these two orphaned girls
who relived the horror
of seeing their grandmother rotting on a bench
every night.
They had nightmares
of their grandmother standing up from the bench
with maggot infested eyes
and green rotting skin
coming to kiss their cheeks.
They were 6 years old.

Eugene was 13
and his last image of home was
his father drowning in their attic
yelling for him to swim
out of a small hole in the ceiling.
His father never learned to swim.
Eugene waited on the roof of his house,
now his father's tomb,
for 3 days
until a helicopter came.

John was an 8 year old boy
with black skin
and silver teeth
who squeezed between me and Kitty every night.
He dreamt of his mother finding him,
and his dream came true;
I watched them walk away together.
Him
in awe of his mom being alive.
Her
drunk and high.
The last time I saw him
his mother was slapping him in the back of the taxi
that took him away from me.

I pray
that
they learned
to overcome
their nightmares.
I hope
every day
that they learned to stand up
to the ones telling them
that their experience
is a crutch,
an excuse,
to never be anything more than what their
parents
are.
I hope
they all learned
to swim.