Yahara Journal 2021

Home Sydnee Schaller Reliable, homey, loving.

Small town America.

You will treat me well.

I’ll never forget where I came from.

They tell me all of this with confidence.

They are screaming on mountain tops about how great you are, how accepting you are, how nice it is to be here.

But they lie.

For I have seen your dark alleys, and I know what happens in those cornfields after midnight.

I’ve been in that rundown barn as your teenagers get drunk on Boone’s Farm and Miller Light.

I was in that bedroom when he stripped her naked and took her dignity.

You boast about your pleasantries and your well-to-do families.

Your yes, ma’ams and your no, sirs, your pleases and your thank yous, and your “Welcome to Our Neck of the Woods” attitude.

You believe you taste like the extra powdered sugar on the funnel cakes at the Homecoming Fair.

They all think you taste that way.

They think you feel like soft touches and light kisses and that favorite blanket you’ve had since you were three.

But it’s a lie.

I’ve seen your dark side.

You feel like the heartbreak of a first love, gasping for breath at the end of your bed.

You feel like the tube they ran down my nose after I refused to drink the charcoal at the hospital.

But they were trying to save my life, trying to send me back to you.

You are the kids that pushed me around, called me a liar, said I just wanted attention.

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