Part 05

Back then, reading books everyone was reading: Rand,
Gibran, Hesse — imagining perfection, imagining that
misunderstood idealism was some kind of quiet
rebellion, a secret counterculture. Until it came apart.

First innocence was fractured. Like a faraway rumble.
A misheard oracle. The truth is not always true. Then
the heroes turned themselves inside out. This too was
endured like a blood-letting ritual. An inevitable rite of

passage. Home is a variable construct. The cracks grew
wider. And deeper. Till the pillars crashed. Till the roof
caved in. The bottom fell out. As if someone let go. As
if I had been holding on. You can lose what you never

had. How do you run away from a place you should be
running to? But this is an ordinary story. You grab your
dress above your knees and rush out against the wind.
You cauterize your wounds and brush reasons from

your hair when you fall. You tell yourself the swamp is
an open field. This is not a warrior-epic. You are a little
dog in a big dog fight, except the big dogs don’t even
know there is a fight. You can stay. But then you run.