Zorro

What is the purpose of my voice?
Is it allowed to stand stark in the light to be seen?
What will that endless possiblilty that is bound to follow hold?

I step through the door
into the dark of the night's chill.
My feet crunch when they meet
the soft gravel of the driveway.

As I walk, my fingers trace
the edges of the envelope I hold
in my right hand.

We are all just human,
affected by the changing world around us.
Like a perfect square of origami paper
that a child folds into a crane, 
we are manipulated. 
The folding pressing shaping,

One year ago.
Today.
My 13th birthday.

My mom and I drove 
over to my grandparents
house, we walked up the stairs.

Inside, my grandmother,
my mom and I, three generations,
sat down at the kitchen table.

Intensity burns from 
the pits of darkness
that are her eyes.

The way she pauses
before letting her fingers slip
off the ladder rung.

Her aggression fades 
into a softer tone
as she crouches.

A car drives mutely across the snowdrifts 
that blanket the dirt road, 
as snow blazes down 
against its windshield.

Two girls sit side by side in the backseat,