from blyth 2

When COVID hit I was so fortunate to own a single family home that had a little backyard and a nice front porch. That first summer, clinging to a job I had planned to leave before the economy tanked, my anger at the professional situation I was in got beaten into the dirt and yielded tomatos, peppers, peas, corn, squash, and giant sunflowers. Leaving fresh produce on other peoples front porches became my love language.

At one point a photographer friend did a series of socially distanced photos of people on their porches. My ex spouse and I participated, decided we would be true to ourselves and appeared in our bathrobes. We got married over zoom on that same porch a few months later.

Trouble arrived onto that same porch too. First the empty bottles, later I find the tin foil. Trauma come home to roost, and taking up space so publicly. I think so often of how my mother stridently hushed me when I fought with her, so that the sin became not just my rebellion but also my voice. I am not afraid of having screaming fights on the front porch with you. I am not afraid of screaming cops off that porch when they come.

Eventually I force you out the house. I will not die with you or for you. I move all your furniture out of my house, alone, late at night, sweating and swearing and fully present in my body.

Almost exactly three years later I finally get to sell the house. First a dumpster stands in the driveway, me tossing half the contents of the house off the side of the front porch through the whole first night, just like when I moved you. Two days I am standing on the front porch watching the moving van leave. It is a privilege to leave. We are both lucky to be alive.