When this woman laughs

I don't apologize for my cackle
When it slips out from between my rosy cracked lips and sunburnt cheeks and what she called "striking" nose
When it reverberates around the classroom, spills a few drinks, wraps around the arches of a few eyebrows and pulls up
I let it lose and watch it roam, ruffle a few feathers, disturb a few pigeons, pee on a few fire hydrants and rustle through a newspaper stand
I don't apologize when my cackle eats your giggles because mine has been starving for far too long and your giggles are shallow and soft
I don't apologize when my cackle races around the room like a girl with her first pair of running shoes
When it cracks goblets during serious conversations or splinters sharpened pencils during standardized tests
My cackle sounds like the too-bitter tea from a babushka's cup, like when the dandelion looses her place and wants to spread around the garden
Perhaps I could call in my cackle, scold it for tracking dirt on the rug, send it away without dinner 
And apologize to the people seen with my cackle, moved by my cackle, shocked by my cackle
But the thing about cackles and people with cackles
Is
We really couldn't care

ZoeBee

VT

19 years old

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