Lily Pads

 I was mad at the government and called it fat

I walked away drunken through chicken fields and strange cities

A small pack of three long-haired dogs followed me for my songs and my rice

And so we had a revolution for freedom and pig bones

And so we followed the pig bones into the landfills

And so we followed the pig bones into the rivers

And so we followed the pig bones into the drinking water

We waded hungry through lagoons-composed lyrics on liberty-went feral-went tin can hobo

without a god-went nihilist-hopped bars and State lines-grew beards long-dodged taxes

littered-passed Early Time bottles with strangers

And then I saw lily pads

We were born into mule bones in Missouri

And learned to drive on lawn mowers

Facts meant believing in them

And hard work was Grandma’s way of living in God’s country

I was supposed to paint the world as white as the blood of the lamb

And then I saw lily pads

There were a thousand dark-varnish bar stools

We were always one stool away

Always nursing warm beers-being a fool-turning away the drunken women for our stubborn

Christian morals-waking up alone in low sunrises by streams-soaked in dew-ready to

ignore any apocalypse or authoritarianism

And then I saw lily pads

We asked the bartender do you ever feel futile?

She poured a shot without looking anyone in the eye and said no

We drank the shots until the shot glasses were cloudy like spiderwebs-left stumbling down moss

covered roads begging for bibles and meaning

And then I saw lily pads

We put a matriarch in a nursing home

And every world’s pine trees caught on fire

I did not connect the two

The old die in chlorinated sheets without memories

I’m getting older

Older in miles and lost ideologies

Older in vodka

Older in distance from my Bible-fingering family from the cornfields and Kentucky hills who

gave me my shame and my generosity

And so I gave my time to the cities of men

And I gave my sleep to the neon dive bars

I gave my body to gas station mirrors

I gave my courage to the wind

I gave the rest to women

And then I saw lily pads

We started vomiting from our hangovers and learned the merits of freedom

Freedom has no company

Freedom has wine goblets and fists clunking-toasting weathered diatribes along the road

Freedom has wandering strange cities with buckets of people not sharing their skin

Freedom has sleeping in dusty trailers with no power-washing dishes for your rice-milking goats

Freedom has falling in love with soft-lipped strangers who are always lovers-always strangers

I stitched that freedom into my gut

I watered that freedom with rice beer

I grew that freedom into the holes of my t-shirts

I loved that freedom

I called that freedom passion

I called that freedom meaning

And then I saw lily pads

Originally from Southeast Missouri, Kory Vance is a life-long poet and affordable housing advocate. He currently lives in Sacramento. With his free time, Kory enjoys strongman and dark beer.