#.................yeah

i’ve had two things for almost my whole life: a machine to dry my wet laundry in and a pavilion within sprinting distance. my first was riverside, within flooding distance.

i passed the pavilion every day, escaping from prison in the mornings and then again when i returned after school, an exit sign that read “prison dead ahead.”

i’ve always had a washing machine, i consider myself lucky to have that. i’ve nearly always had a dryer, too; but i bought clothesline when i was fifteen.

a glowing exit sign at the drugstore, a pit stop on my journey back to prison, i knew that i’d sit and watch the river for a while contemplating everything at my pavilion.

our dryer wasn’t broken, and fifty feet of clothesline wasn’t enough to stretch out between the trees behind our prison. but fifty feet of clothesline is plenty.

i watched the river for an hour, let the sky get dark above me, let the world mirror “dark” within me, and went back to prison.