Tornadoes
It feels like my family has always been trying to get away from each other. We deny each other's existence pretending we can wipe clean the blood that binds us together. But each other is only manifestation from a river, a gathering of trees that grow on the banks. We each stand as markers along the way of our history. Time is making us better, but without a bird's eye view, it doesn't seem fast enough. A mother rejects children, a father walks away, a cousin rejects another, an aunt rejects nieces and nephews, a granddaughter rejects a grandmother, a brother rejects a sister, I reject my mother. We are to each other mirrors of imagined calamity, behind which we are all still children reaching for love. In 1967, a tornado measuring EF-4 on the Fujita scale touched down in the town of Belvidere, Illinois, and blew everything in its path into little bits. My father, who worked at the roller rink as an organist, had to find work in another town. I don't remember if it was