October 2021

October 2021

If the girl does not stop the banging, I will drive her out.

I know she knows quiet. One morning she woke up, steamed the water, poured a glass, and sipped it kindly enough without a noise.

There is so little of that, though. So little of the steaming, sipping, sitting. Most often it is the banging. Nails in the walls to hang her art, drawers and cupboards while hunting, the doors when she decides she is afraid of me. I’ve had enough of the banging, and enough of the girl and too much of the person she becomes when she opens her screen to say, “Hello, this is, I am, how are, end of day, experience, pleasure, pleasure, pleased, pleasure, happy to, happy to, understand, thank you, understand, unfortunate, thank you. Bubbye.”

I hate that person. They are not welcome here. I think the girl is trying to drive them out as well. One day, before the banging and before she woke the person she becomes, she left in her nightgown and came back dripping. I saw that quiet in her then, the one that sets the kettle and brews the tea. I thought it might stay.

But the becomer wasn’t banished yet. And the girl dried off; the girl spoke in her voice; the girl stared at her brick, cold and shaking in front of the heater, but not getting warm.

The girl won’t make it through the winter this way. Not with only a becomer and a brick to keep her warm.

And so it won’t please me, but if she doesn’t stop the banging, I will drive her out. I might miss what she’s done with the walls. I might miss the music and the bedtime stories the brick reads to us at night. But I miss the sound of the river more, and I can’t hear it for all her banging.

The girl can only stay if she learns to listen,

the apple house