The light in the kitchen was always the color of apricot jam after five o’clock. It was the hour that awakened my grandmother. I’d hear some rustling from the kitchen, the coffee pot humming, and then her talking to someone on the phone––but I’d spare myself a couple more hours of sleep before I got up to watch some cartoons. Later on, forts would be made of blankets and pillows, slung from couch arm to couch arm; irritated voices could be heard from underneath––my sister and I deciding on who would be queen of the fort. All sounds of the house where it all began. Where I started writing my own songs and poetry.  

“I carry the grit of the unpaved driveway under my feet.  

Visuals of all the memories glued to me in the form of scars.  

My leg, scarred from the rock wall, my arm from a cat scratch.”  

“Poem in the Key of C” 

My grandmother is a ghost walking through that house now. I go inside and can still feel her warm presence in the pink blazer that lays on her bed and black shoes at the foot––the last outfit she picked out for herself. The white stove that’s been there since the birth of my mother still feels hot––although it’s been out of commission for years––it’s an outcast in the kitchen with dark red walls and flowered wallpaper. The light remains, a golden smear of what used to be. 

. . . 

“Mom, we’re heading out!” I say as we head out the front door––it was once an old screen door, but glass is now where the screen was. Summer break simmers out, and the start of school comes back around. It always went by too fast. I didn’t think, or even know to slow down and take everything in. To not take advantage of the simplicity of what was around me––when my biggest problem was my sister trying to be exactly like me.  

“I had to put you away 

But it doesn’t feel the same.  

I watched you slip away,  

I watched you slowly fade…” 

“Nobody’s Little Girl” 

The days came faster and faster until I wasn’t a ten-year-old kid anymore and “Mom, we’re heading out!” meant that we we’re heading off to college instead of going outside to play. Now, I stand in the bright LED lighting of my college apartment––my own stove sits used, but for different reasons––it feels murderous compared to the soft burn of my grandmother’s kitchen light. I turn the lights out and reach for the switch on an incandescent lamp, but I stop myself because I know my new life will still be there when I turn it on, despite the color. 

. . .

We were impatient girls, sitting at the old wooden table. The red tablecloth drapes over the side and onto our legs. I, the older of the two, sighing, asking “When is dinner going to be ready?” ––a question I knew would provoke a certain look from my mother that meant shut up. Our impatience bled into the mornings when we’d fight over who’d have their hair put in a ponytail first or the evenings when we’d fight over who would be Player 1 on the Wii. 

“The anger fills me,  

And the violence kills me. 

 I’m not asking you to fix me,  

But you make me feel guilty.  

So guilty.”  

“Untitled Song” 

The arguments must’ve gone on for at least a decade. They were a sound that somehow added to the ambience of the old house. I find myself wishing to still have those arguments, even though they typically had me in the corner, staring at a wall for ten minutes. I can’t help the melancholy I feel when I go back to that house. Sometimes I walk inside, sit down, and start sobbing. I miss my Mimmy. And I miss how my life used to be before I had to face the problems that were hidden far beneath the surface. 

. . .

Being alive for only two decades can show you that it goes by too fast. Life ends too fast. I let the guilt I feel inside eat at me way too much. Maybe if I hadn’t walked into that house then none of this would’ve happened—words I have had to repeat for various situations. Truth be told, it’s not my fault. But that’s easier said than believed. Yet my mind won’t let up on the façade I’ve created to soothe the pain in my heart. 

“My mind is still vividly standing over you, 

The person I love is right under my feet. 

I’ve been told time changes things, 

But I still hold back my tears so God will let you hear me.” 

“There’s No Pain in Heaven” 

I think there may be a type of generational sadness that’s resonated from my grandmother to my mom onto me. It’s what I like to refer to as the “Southern undertow.” The sadness that’s hidden behind all the courtesy and flower blossoms; the history that sticks to the walls of that house more tediously than the wallpaper.  

. . .

Sometimes, I walk up to my apartment building. I’ll see a light the color of apricot jam burning in someone else’s window. I stop in my tracks and stare as comfort washes over me like a warm, familiar embrace. And for a brief moment, I can see my grandmother in the kitchen, the fort, the wallpaper, the table… Everything that feels so far away now that I’ve grown up.  

“I write my feelings onto the page, 

I think that this helps but I still feel afraid. 

I’m alone, 

I’m just so alone.” 

“The Difference Between You and Me” 

Then I walk back into the bright LED world of my college apartment and find myself wishing to be a kid again. Wishing to be carefree and surrounded by the people who loved me first. Wishing to walk into my Mimmy’s kitchen and find her sitting on the stool with a cup of coffee in her hand. Wishing to see the light behind her, the color of apricot jam. 

“Colors can feel as warm as a hug 

The feeling of a grandmother’s arms 

Oranges, reds, a mix of the two 

The speed of getting older 

A flame’s bottom 

The need to go back 

A kitchen light 

The color of Apricot Jam.”