Mississippi Man

My husband is Mississippi, with his broken highways and endless blue skies. His pine trees as tall as buildings, staying green all year and bending, almost breaking in the wind.

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He surrounds himself with bankrupt people, hoping they will make him feel better about himself. In the summer, he is hot and angry, his asphalt roads puffing steam after a quick downpour. I watch as he falls apart, but he reminds me he was never a solid state.

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The food he makes is sometimes a comfort, other times spicy with too much salt. He never has a winter, a time to cool down. Beside me in the bed, he is a furnace of sweat and too much warmth. He lets violence and anger consume the choices he makes, his towns and cities falling apart. His people thirsty for love and support, but there’s not a drop left to give to anyone.

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He says, look at my oceans, see my coastal towns, how pretty, so much culture. But I see rundown places with no one looking out for the people inside them. I see hurt and pain, people hungry and broke, using weapons against one another, wanting peace but unable to figure out where it lives. He says he loves me, but I can’t make him see that love should never be violent.

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He says, look at our beautiful nature, all the lush green in the summer, all the birds that chirp, and the stars that shine at night. I say I can’t see the stars through my tears as he opens a bottle of whiskey and moves further and further away from me.

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