Me (Moth)

by Amber McBride

I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing To cross back. I’m set On something vast.

This is long work. A finding spell for roots destined to twine.

Given or replaced, names hang to your bones like forever suits.

Names outgrow you, like a garden left untended; they don’t disappear with the science that keeps our bodies alive. Jesus is still Jesus, alive, dead & resurrected— & if we forget, headstones remind us that names slouch on without bodies. So even though my name is strange I have to live with it. It has been with my nerves for far too long; my name is a thick wilderness of angelica root around me, crafted for my spirit.

but there is only so much prayer & if god takes sacrifices, only so much blood to offer. That day there was only enough prayer & blood for one of us to walk out.

I’ve always been a passing breeze, felt but never seen unless I was dancing.

I am not something to anyone.

Or maybe here silence took root because first impressions matter

It’s fine, I don’t mind being nothing to no one, unrooted on every soil my feet trespass on.

I think of candy bars breaking in half.

I have noticed some things traverse state lines, oceans & railways.

have noticed sometimes a stereotype becomes the truth to even the stereotyped,

I only ever felt at home when moving under the stage lights. When moving I could fly, but after the accident that split our car like a candy bar, I gave up movement, so sometimes I feel less alive.

Be as silent as a seahorse. Devour lyrics & melodies like raindrops on your tongue. Choreograph a symphony of movement in the mind.

Forget the ancestors, they up & left. Build a new god out of toothpicks & song dust.

Don’t crack. Don’t dance like Misty Copeland. Do. Not. Crack. Don’t. Dance. Like. Misty. Copeland.

Even after two years of riding the school bus, small bumps make me clench my jaw tight. I don’t have a car because cars cost money & driving in tiny cars sounds like broken bones & torn skin, which means I am the only junior on the bus.

I guess a girl with a family who spilled out of a car & who has a scar down her face is too fragile to bully & what is the point of talking if they can’t stack insults on my chest?

The suburbs don’t sound like anything. They are just bland—unseasoned. As tasteless as frozen toast.

My gray-bearded grandfather used to say, You dance like magic because you offer so much blood.

I used to feel tied to the music of the city, even walked to the beat. But here, I don’t dance anymore. I don’t move. I just sit & think of drifting away … away … away …

I tug my spirit back into my skin. I will myself into stone.

No smile. No smirk. Just a beat I can’t miss that hits a note deep in my gut, at the root of me.

The choreography is choppy water instead of wind blowing through a field of wheat or graveyard ancestors kissing cheeks. The song choice is fork scraped over granite instead of hands displacing soft dirt.

In my head I live a lot. In my head I dance a lot.

a lot of what we think we know about moths is as flimsy as their delicate wings, which sprinkle dust & death like whispered omens.

Grandfather used to say, There are no omens, just balance. Balance is what brings about magic.

A flashlight shambled a million years of celestial navigation, the artificial hue somehow outshining the actual moon.

Grandfather used to say, We light candles because they are lighthouses for the spirits of our ancestors to come sit with us. We give offerings out of respect.

Who will answer for the sin of it being easy to get lost when so many orbs mirage the illusion of brightness?

Seats are not assigned, but the one beside me is usually an empty question mark.

but I had a Hoodoo grandfather, deadness doesn’t bother me.

Why clog your lungs when fresh air surrounds you?

Blossom in four stages because they are very good at poker & don’t want to show all their cards at once.

Cocoon is the miracle.

Imagine being prepared to die just to fly for a few weeks in the sky.

The long magic freed our people.

Moth, you must remember this work. You must grow in it. You must live it,

This is long work. A finding spell, for roots destined to twine.

My grandfather was a great conjurer, but even the greatest rootworkers can’t raise the dead. So none of his spells are useful to me. In my head I hear Grandfather chanting— The ancestors are with you, Moth, you are never alone. Taught you. You have magic in your bones. Open your eyes, open your eyes, I would never leave you trapped—defenseless.

We do “trust exercises” because you can’t act if you can’t trust, just like you can’t conjure if you don’t offer something.

But I am not my grandfather. I am not magic & bone. I am littered with scars & limping through years. I have nothing to offer the dead that they don’t already have.

Lucky the girl lived, because she was known for sucking the juice from the sun. So graceful, Juilliard was eyeing her at ten. Lucky that girl lived, because she wove rainbows with her fingertips.

Maybe if I didn’t gorge myself on life, there would have been some left in the car for Mom & Dad & Zachary.

A gift, an iron to smooth the creases that wrinkle up your spirit.

He sings, his voice cuts like lightning through thunder clouds. It’s hard to be what everyone wants when living feels like haunting.

It’s hard to be what everyone wants when living feels like haunting.

I hear you never come empty-handed in the South & I am nothing if not polite.

I leave courage & cleverness behind because I am nothing if not polite.

Sometimes in silence the heated hands of hell reach up through the floor, ready to pull me down down down. Like they forgot me when they took everyone else.