Trying To Grow Grapes In The Sonoran
A poem and thoughts about (almost) giving up on life
I’m a desert vineyard
planted in the wrong place,
a thousand miles away from where I’m supposed to be.
I snap and crackle in this dry soil,
desire for water my only yield.
The sky is open, wide as a mouth; not even one drop of rain.
I have lived in what Martin Luther King, Jr. calls “the darkness of destructive selfishness” for many years. When my severe daily headaches began nearly nine years ago, I curled up within myself, constantly complaining to my parents, using my pain as an excuse for my childish behavior.
Now, I’ve nearly given up on life. My mind is dull, my body can barely move through the wide world, much less through my house.
In my early twenties, I traveled the world, my spirit blazing with wonder and delight. That me is dead. My ashes lie in the creative desert where the vineyard fails to grow.
Only a tiny ember of hope remains: the remembrance of my ambition to write, to make art, to love. Each day, I wrap my body around that ember, desperate to keep it alight.
This piece was inspired by the prompt for Thursday, February 16, 2023:
Thursday’s Thoughts
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
