The flood left a cavity.
It came in without mercy,
It removed and ripped what I held onto,
It took away what I loved,
But it's ironic that a flood of love removed all the love that I ever had.
The flood diluted it's impurities with my purities.

It's just a house
on four posts
that managed to encase
my heart in it
and lock it up
with the key.

It's just a house
that got swallowed
and my heart went with it.
Locked up and lost
into the sea.

As I was climbing the steps,
Today after school…
I felt a pang of claustrophobia,
Despite being outdoors…
As I watched the herd of students in uniform,
Both in clothing and in conversation…
I felt scared.

Because I was a part of that herd.
One which mindlessly spent its days,
Spent,
In accordance to the routines of the society,
Their personalities among other things.

All those kids,
In preparation for standardized tests,
Had become standardized as well…

They were forced to fit a mold,
For so long, that they didn’t have to be forced anymore,
And it had all happened so quickly, just like the way mold covers food,
And it had come to seem so permanent, just like patina covering brass,
Hiding the quirks and the character of the statue for all eyes to see, through corrupting it.
They had turned fit to false ideals.

The stair was full of black coats,
As if to make the uniforms even more uniform.

And even the rare spring-like winter day,
Hadn’t made me want to break the routine that day,
To run away into a field
(If I could find a field in the concrete jungle,
The one that I hadn’t yearned to desert just yet,
Though I should’ve made any place my field, anyways.)
And to dance & lie among wild flowers,
Each one unique and not uniform at all.
Even the trees around the stairs looked one and the same,
But how could the system curb even,
The one thing supposed to be unrestrainable,
The uncurbably roaring nature,
To bend it in its will against diversity.
Just like it had done to us…

But then I saw kids playing in the soccer field,
Not a field of flowers, but a field nevertheless
They did seem to be thinking differently,
Their laughs didn’t resemble each other’s
So it was growing up which had made us like that,
A premature maturity,
Which would be premature even at the age of eighty,
(If it could even be considered maturity)
Which had stripped away our individuality,
And had made us a homogeneous flood, sweeping away all identity

And I still am a captive of the desperation that had taken a hold of me in that brief glance,
I still don’t know what to do,
Humanity, help me,
Aid me in melting these cages,
Through the heat of the stars presents in your minds as well as your hearts,
To recover individuality.

For I refuse to give up,
And to loose myself in the flood

Katrina…by Jessie 9/05

Calm and peaceful, the waves softly echo and reverberate as they find obstacles in their path.

Quiet… so deafening you can hear the other mans thoughts.

The sky, the bluest blue, and the only real movement, is the birds’ overhead.

Stranded on this island surrounded by water, I look out to all the other islands and all the other survivors perched upon the roofs of flooded homes.

Not a word is uttered, shock and dismay has taken hold.

Sure the sky is blue now but only hours ago the sky was dark and ominous, as a cataclysmic event was unfolding.

Devastating winds, pelting rain, and fear made its way to shore.

It’s as if the gods scooped up the sea and hurled it all at once.

Some made it others didn’t.

The smell of death stains the air.

Faces peer from just below the waters surface, eyes fixated and still, looking up to the blue sky.

Nothing to do but sit and wait

Time devours its self while waiting

Wait for lower level, will assistance come?

Wait for sustenance.

All is gone; all is lost

In a blink of an eye all has changed.

Never seen a sky so blue

Before the murky waters came
Life was different
Maw-Maw’s red-bricked house sat at the back of our dead-end road
The ever-welcoming glass door with the
Faulty hitch opened up to a two-step stair
Leading down into a living room
Encompassed with the smell of
Cajun cooking
And basked in the essence
Of Family

After the murky waters came
Life looked different
I remember the water whirl pooling into the tops of my
rain boots
As I trudged next door to my aunt’s water-lined house
To comfort Maw-Maw, who lost everything
Her tears falling into the stench-infested puddles at her feet
And jumping right back up in a splash as if they too
Were hurrying to find shelter

The heat of the sun held the
Stench of the monster
That had us all in its grip
Patches of brown grass mocked us
Where the water had decided to leave early
And accumulate somewhere else

Piles of our lives lined the driveways
Mildew fogged up the windows of
Miscellaneous cars and trucks
Which still held secrets that the murky waters left inside
What could be salvaged
What remnants were left
From before
The murky waters came

Floors were ripped up
Walls gutted out
Bricks broke easily under the weight
Of demolition
Our hearts broke easily under the weight
Of the water

I once watched a documentary about horror
Which was described as something that simply should not be
but somehow
is
Horror was the bulging, black molded bar in my kitchen
The scattered furniture in my living room
The stench that took over my senses at the opening of a door to go inside or outside; fresh air forgotten
The fact that my bedroom looked normal in spite of the soggy carpet and the
Drooping painting hanging on my wall,
Clothes strewn across my bed in an effort
To survive

After the murky waters left
Life was different
Life became “before the flood” and “after the flood”
“Hey, how are you,” became “have you heard from FEMA?”
“What are you up to” became “are y’all raising or demolishing?”
Three mountains of bricks down my road became
Trailers on pedestals
The trash, our former possessions, was eventually gone
New replaced the old

Now
life is life
We are thankful for what we have
We still sit on that wooden swing in the shade of the afternoon
And we reminisce of a time before the murky waters came
All the while appreciating the
Now

And we still laugh together
We still cry together
Up in that storm-safe trailer
At the back of our dead-end road
Gumbo is cooking on the stove
And we’re basking warmly in the essence
Of Family

I know now, or in a sense...
I've always known, I've always known
That I don't care about real life
It's hard to care if you never were.
But if I'm not real...
Will people care for me?
Will death just accept me?
Or do I have to stay and tell my story?
Either way, I'm more than unreal, less than real.
And I'm more conscious than I've ever been...
In a sense, I'm alive.