Southern Stride
Savoy Crosby
Sept 2021
I grew up surrounded by rednecks painted brown — from collards boiled hunter green and stewed with pink meat. They warmed my throat so I could bend my words when I spoke — carefully to my elders, lovingly to my mother, languid to my father. I come from tens of static screens and sharp shocks — from the free PBS program after school. I was four sections and an itchy scalp, pink hair lotion, broken elastic, and lost barrettes. My hands pulled uniforms from collapsed drawers that splintered and pinched my fingers. My stride fell across unwashed linoleum. This was the cleanest my feet have ever been.
Before me were borderline sundown towns and full meals for babies with no teeth. Before me was formula and cereal in bottles, or bread and pot liquor instead of baby food. Before me was real food, or no food. Before me was water, boiled before drinking or bathing. It rinsed bruises, or washed down meals eaten among broken families. It cleaned women raised by women.
With me now is pride and shame. I carry the memories stashed in tucked-away letters, in unsigned cards. I celebrate the swishing tongue that sometimes wants to crawl into the back of my throat. I navigate the finest line between suppression and expression — yelling without opening my mouth, accepting guilt-clad apologies with unkept promises. I tiptoe through life, over clean floors and into open doors, and my feet have never felt so filthy.
Savoy Crosby is from Little Rock, Arkansas and studies in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.