Protest Song

My parents were not Elvis fans, my parents were Van Morrison fans. I’m named after a song. The song is about a honey that never crystallizes. Tupelo Honey. It’s sweeter than the rest. My parents were having a good time. My parents were stoned out of their minds.

I am a town in Mississippi. I am a town in Oklahoma. I am a town in Arkansas. I am a dust bowl.

I am a honey that can sit in the pantry forever. I am a National Battlefield, site of a Civil War memorial. Sons come to me and never return home. The hipsters whisper uncle.

I am a princess, according to my mother, but also her pumpkin. At midnight, the wheels come off. I am a creature, according to my father. I answer to creature the way the bent things do.

I am a tree of soft wood, black gum, that grows in the Southeastern United States. My Latin name is nyssa. Chunks of me are sold on eBay to carvers and collectors. I bid on myself for a chance to change my shape. 

I am a tourist attraction in a poor state where the best hotel fought for its two stars and there are chicken bones littering the stair. Kings are born in me. I have my own gift shop, and when I visit myself, I spend hundreds of dollars on mugs and magnets that say my name.

I am the clerk at that gift shop who doesn’t drop balloons and confetti, who begins no parade when I pay for my mugs and magnets with a credit card in my own name. I am not the first Tupelo I’ve met.

I am invisible to myself.

I am “Lisa” in coffee shops when I place my order. I am a name everyone knows how to spell. I am “Paula” when the girl hangs my clothes in the dressing room. 

I can’t unearth my parents over every cash register. I can’t call up their ghosts at every transaction. I just want some tea. I just want some pants that fit. I just want to be the girl you think you know. I answer to “Lisa” and “Paula” quickly, brightly, the way it must be to be them.

I am an orphan now. I am nothing my parents call me. I am the wind over their graves. In John Lee Hooker’s song, I am the flood that upends them and jumbles their bones in a stranger’s yard. In Nick Cave’s song, I am the storm. “God bless Tupelo,” he sings.

I am a love song, a blues song, honey for your tea. I’m a poor town and a battleground. I’m a sad hotel, a photo op, a liar for caffeine. I am the verse without the melody. I am the refrain.