Dirty Hair: On Longing for Creative Sisterhood

What I miss most isn't polite coffee dates.

(Note: I read all my pieces out loud for you; I think they’re best that way—but feel free to read instead!)

“Red Ribbon” by Clare Elsaesser

I wish I were lousy with sisterhood.

The kind that lays with me, hot and sticky on unswept linoleum floors listening to lawnmowers. She’s not thinking of yesterday’s shredded cheese bits or the dust of fly wings but the holiness of the ground we sweat upon.

The kind that spits up ideas that we roll around in like a couple of pigs.
They’ll serve as fertilizer for next spring’s thoughts—
but not before we turn
each
one
over
and look at its veins—or better yet,
slip the edge of one into our mouths so we can feel it between our teeth,
hear the crunch through our skeletons.

The kind that wades in, doesn’t give a damn about ruining the dress,
And pulls up shiny things so that,
Together,
we can carry them home
and litter our window sills, deck railings, the backs of our toilets.
Together,
we pull up the careful area rugs, shoving them into hall closets so we can feel the sand we’ve tracked into the kitchen as we,
Together,
scratch at chigger bites on our ankles:
Proof of life.

There are days for talking—
For scrunching into a little ball and ugly screaming what’s true
so that tomorrow, we can be less fist-like.
Some days are for declaring.
For prophesy.

But just as the moon follows the sun,
there are days for listening—
(And these might be my favorite)
For sitting with her, dirty hair,
To watch her fall back into her own river of murmurings
(what an honor)
While she bears witness to my own falling.
These are days when the words, diverted from the mouth to the fingers,
whisper prayers across the keys,
A benediction, a beseeching, a trembling on new feet, the bones still soft.

But most days, there is only the “ache.”
Like the itch of a phantom limb,
The longing for a sister.