Damn Fine Sentence #31

Frequently while I’m reading, a sentence grabs me and forces me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

“To sing was to grind corroded gears, blow dirt off jagged shards of memory.”
— — — Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
— — — On the Roof Top

I’ve been having flashbacks. Family life, like random scenes from a slasher movie. His fist at my sibling’s throat. Another sibling waking up — please don’t kill me. Another, an adult, asking why did he hate them. My aunt telling him if you ever hit my kid again …. And me, grown, him blocking my way in a doorway, calling me a little bitch. PTSD drives me to take a migraine pill. Then I pull out my collection of song lyrics and click a YouTube video. Merle Haggard, live, 1977. I belt out “Ramblin’ Fever.” Over and over and over. Until the slasher movie fades to black.