Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Sometimes the world don’t give you what you need, no matter how hard you look. Sometimes it withholds.

“It’s like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.”

“Home is about the earth. Whether the earth open up to you. Whether it pull you so close the space between you and it melt and y’all one and it beats like your heart. Same time. Where my family lived… it’s a wall. It’s a hard floor, wood. Then concrete. No opening. No heartbeat. No air.”

Sorrow is food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe.