Arts &
Architecture
Month Feature:
"The Strong One"
Short Film

By: Katy Hartman

He always told me there was light in everything,
even in darkness. I looked for it in the musty space
behind the refrigerator, in the cabinet under the sink
where pipes snaked through stale air, in the closet
where a lopsided ironing board lurked in a corner.

I hid from my brother in a closet among sweaters
that still smelled of my mother’s perfume,
and even there a thread of light
seeped through the crack underneath the door.
I cannot seem to find the light

in the hospital room on the fourth floor,
my mother’s thin frame propped up on pillows
behind her. I remember the way she traced her fingernails
up and down my spine during long sermons
while I counted dead ladybugs like sequins lining

the baseboard beneath stained glass windows.
I remember red lipstick, Christmas tree earrings, plastic
and glittering. The way her high heels clicked
across the linoleum kitchen floor like water droplets.
The way she sang to me, the way her voice

was soft and low when she sang, Were you there
when they crucified my Lord? Oh, sometimes
it causes me to
tremble
tremble
tremble

My father lifted me up to place a freshly
cut rose, stripped of its thorns, on her silent chest.
He held me there, my index finger grazed her hand,
and it was cold and strange, almost as if it were made
of something other than skin. Where is the light

in earnest
prayers
left
un-
answered?
father
take
this cup
from me.

 

Katy is a native Mississippian who spent her high school years with her family in Brasov, Romania in the middle of the Carpathian mountains.  She graduated from the University of Mississippi in May 2012 and immediately moved to what she has long considered to be her “favorite city in the world.”  She nannies three beautiful children on the Upper East Side and is pursuing her MFA in creative writing at The New School.  She loves Flannery O’Connor, Rockwood Music Hall, German Shepherds, and people with interesting stories.