Poetry by Tiffany Lindfield

                        Michel G. CC



Grit

Persistence pays off, they say, and you grit your teeth, thinking of it: Grit, that thing that is supposed to get your through the winter, to the other side but I wonder, what if the other side is just more of the same ole’ thing? The same ole’ shit. How long can I persist?

Have you felt that way? Not everyone has. Some really haven’t. I’ve met them. And wondered whose ass they must’ve kissed in our past lives.

I carry on. Because even if the other side is hell, too, well, at least I fucking tried, right?

I understand the ones who don’t. 

I saw an ad on Craigslist: Lookin for a room. Just tryna start over, get my life right. I was an addict, but God done took that from me and I be here today. I need a small room, not much, just a place to lay my head and a place close to some gas station I can work at.

And thought: If someone can put there laundry out there like that, granny panties and all, speak with pride, call on the Lord for a fresh start, then I can mop my pity off the floor.

Then, I think that whoever wrote that ad is probably high right now and whoever responds to such an ad may just be who they got high with. Fuck it--

I keep chugging down the sorrow in this ole’ heart, like acid, feeling the weight, heavy and blanketing, like too much jelly on bread.

I yank my chin up, ripping red lipstick across my lips—thinning, cracked from wind, slapping--

Grit my teeth and drag one foot, the other drags along. To

See what this other side has to offer.

​

Tiffany Lindfield is a social worker by day, trade, and heart working as an activist for climate justice, gender equality and animal rights. By night she is a prolific reader of anything decent, and a writer. (https://www.tiffanylindfield.com/)

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