I am not angry that the women who raised me are sad, because I learned
to love them, which is something they all passed down to each other,
I’m sure, and to me, which means I love them with what in me
is still theirs, and that is precious, because I cannot

watch their lives back, or even decipher what it is
I feel on my shoulders when I come home to find
the wet, sunny ground just as lonely as I left it,
and vivid, which is to say that there are parts of me

in places I must leave and come back to, and those parts
are lonely and vivid, and I am not angry, because I watched
them look at the purple hills and think those hills were purple
just for them, and they were, and I could see their hearts hurting

so much they could hear it when their eyes closed, which made their eyes close
slow, which made their eyes break me where it was good to be broken, which is
how they got in, and I am not angry, but I did not agree,
and one thing, one thing: tell me it’s a purple hill, afterward.
 

—JC Andrews

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