October 29,2005
Hey 'Trina,
I'm home. Don't know how long I'm staying though.
I have to see how long it'll take Terrilynn to get well and on her feet.
You know I spent the last month sleeping on a hospital chair in Vicksburg.
We had to stay there until Oschner could get a bed for her.
I never would've thought finding a hospital bed in New Orleans would be so hard.
I also never would have believed how alone and scared
I felt being away from the rest of my family.
But, they needed to take care of Mama while I took care of my child.
If you'd gone your ass out to sea and died life wouldn't still be so lonely for so many.
I'd still be going to work, doing the job I've done for 25 years.
Living the life I was comfortable with.
I still can't believe or accept the changes you brought with you.
When we came off the Causeway at Jeff Hwy and saw what you'd done
I started crying, cried all the way home.
Do you even realize how many miles of tears that was?
My son-in-law kept telling me it's okay, it's okay.
It wasn't okay, it never will be again.
The soldiers won't let me near Lake Pontchartrain.
These past days I've leaned over many a canal to watch murky water that still lingers.
I've been through so many neighborhoods that are ghost towns.
I look at empty houses with lawns and driveways piled high with debris.
Debris that is actually a family's life story.
The grief you left is traced by dirty water lines on buildings throughout my city.
They range from three feet to rooftop high.
Do you know I haven't seen a single pigeon, sparrow or
the wild parrots that used to feed in Miss Tilly's pear tree?
Each night that I don't take a pill to sleep, I strain my ears for what would be
the welcoming sound of stray dogs knocking over trashcans.
Now a silence louder than screeching cats drowns out the
"once upon a time" clanging of tin hitting pavement at 3am.
Girl let me tell you, (I'm spitting them out as I write)
I've eaten thousands of the swarming gnats that fly indoors as well as outside.
No matter how much of the spray Red Cross is handing out you use,
you can't get rid of them.
I eat gnats without being able to smell or taste a crispy McDonald's fry.
Why?
Because you decided to stir up a contaminated gumbo
seasoned with dead bodies and heavily salted by tears.
I am grateful, thankful and I appreciate the military men and women.
Again because of you they now outnumber my friends and neighbors.
They protect, they smile, they always wave.
They're polite, helpful and they carry M16's.
They're here to help restore order and rebuild the lives you took from us.
Personally I can't wait for them to leave.
Their presence makes me nervous and mad at the same time.
The counselor I talked to told me this was normal.
What the fuck about jumping at the sound of a door opening is normal?
What the fuck about living in a city
where you can't get a loaf of bread after 5 o'clock is normal?
What the fuck about totally blacked out neighborhoods is normal?
Just what the fuck is normal anymore?
So, I walk.
I walk the streets where (no longer) I've always felt safe.
For days I walked through a forest of stinking refrigerators starring in disbelief.
The military and haz-mat claim they've cleared all bodies from the x marked numbered houses.
(that's another thing that drives me nuts, all those orange x's)
If so then where is the smell coming from?
What are the flies you hear buzzing feeding on?
Death smells quite different from rotting garbage you know.
I walk to what used to be my favorite thinking place.
Crossing the railroad tracks, up the grassy levee where Eagle St.
meets Leake Ave ( you probably love that name don't you.)
I stand to stare down at the Mississippi for what seems like hours.
There I contemplate the D words I am so sick of hearing.
Words like, destruction, displaced, despair, debris and, devastation.
As a citizen of New Orleans,
I spoke to the river I still love giving it a few choice B words
to bring to you wherever you hauled ass to after you hit us and ran.
Words like, big, beautiful, brave and yeah bawdy, bodacious and BAAAAD!
New Orleans says, suck those words through the holes you left in her people's lives.
She'll be back.
Yeah you caught us with our drawers down, screwed us up the butt,
damn near wiped us off the map with your dirty bathwater.
But, we're still standing.
You scattered us to the four winds, sent us places we never wanted to be,
among people who didn't want or were afraid to have us around.
You made us cry more tears than the flood.
But guess what?
You made us strong.
Taught us something we thought we already knew.
You taught us to really deep down care about each other.
Taught us to value every minute God gives us with someone we love.
Taught us to never take a thing for granted.
Never!
I'll be ticked off with you for years Katrina but,
don't let that fact make you think you've whipped me or us.
Signed, Squeaky from the 17th ward
copyright # TXu1-260-432
Honorable mention
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