remembering the things about nothing at all.

i often forget that my mama was young and scared too.

don’t become the love you feed through bends of wire grass and your mama's wristwatch.

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remember this second start far from away hotel beds,

the ones with the stiff sheets and palm trees printed over cloth so cheap felt like it belonged on the dinner table instead.

remember the televangelist that played at 3AM, begging you to pay for your redemption because your sin was too large for faith to outweigh alone.

remember the homes you wish you could've walked into,

not visit, not leave your shoes outside so you don't get their floors dirty,

but walk freely in, with that family instead, because that family ate dinner together, and they said "i love you", and they really meant it.

remember that film from decades prior — it was black and white and they all had funny accents, the guns were fake and the powder was so dense it stained the actors' faces.

remember when mama told you that the good guys always wore the white hats.

remember that portrait that stayed on the old nightstand of that woman in her pearls and how she kinda looked like mama.

remember the aching and terrible youth and pretending to be asleep when daddy came home and his hat hanging by the front door.

remember squinting your eyes in the dark and wondering if the night had made his hat black or if it had always been that way.

remember all these things,

then blink them away.

it was never about the cowboy movies or the hotels that smelled weird or mama never leaving daddy.

it was never about the color of hats or how fast someone could draw a gun or the seconds between the explosion of a bullet and someone else's skin.

it was never about anything other than love and the things you do with it, the things you do because of it.

mama will tell you it was never about anything other than survival.

it was never really about anything at all.

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As always, stay safe, stay warm, and stay kind.

Best regards,

Zoe.