Annie Crouch

Arkansas

Is full of billboards telling you to find God. Has manners. Blesses your heart. Sounds like my
friend’s mom telling me to get a soda from the garage fridge. Sounds like cicadas crowding the
back door. Yells at you. Smokes weed on the rooftop of my elementary school. Overflows
with honeysuckle in the heat of August. Is dark. Is everything low, and marsh, and swamp. Flips
you in your kayak and sends you downstream. Knows me, knows my brother because “Yes, we
were both born in Little Rock and then we moved.” Listens to you. Notices when you change
your haircut. Is full of billboards telling you not to kill your baby. Repents for its sins. Repents
for its sins. Is where I first kissed my girlfriend in her car, her hand tucked sweetly behind the
nape of my neck. Breathes. Survives. Sews monograms onto clothing for two-year-olds. Makes
me want to write about rivers. Is where my grandpa cried in a Mexican restaurant when I told
him I was an atheist. Can do more than you think. Is learning. Is stuck in its ways. Always puts
ham hock in the peas. Borrows an heirloom tomato from a neighbor. Gossips during the meal.
Sings the blues. Plays the guitar. Is beautiful. Is farmland. Where my great-grandfather set his
crops on fire and had to drive his truck through the flames. Scares itself. Struggles. Is racist. Is
full of billboards telling you to have white pride. Succumbs to guilt like a telephone pole
disguised by kudzu. Leaves a message after the tone; “Hi Honey, I was just calling to see when
you can come over?” Loves you. Kisses your cheek. Makes you want to cry. I am going to leave
you. I am going to leave you. I am. I am.

Annie Crouch is a southern queer emerging writer and undergraduate student at Hendrix College. Their work has been published in the Aonian Collegiate Literary Magazine and they are a Murphy Scholar in Literature and Language.