Sestina: Bama

Contrary to popular belief, I am not from Alabama.
In actuality, I am from New Jersey, and when friends heard I was moving to Alabama,
they were all like 'I can't believe you're moving to Alabama.'
To be fair, I couldn't believe it either, Bama
seemed so far away, so majestic, so foreign sounding Al-A-Bam-Ma,
like a modern day Babylon, Ming Dynasty, Bama.

Yet when I arrived in Alabama,
instead of being embraced by loving Alabama
arms, I felt myself overwhelmed by the Bama-
ness, the metaphorical crimson flood soaking my newly purchased Bama
t-shirt as a way to assimilate into my absurd home, 'BAMA'
written in sans-serif letters across my heart, pledging my grudging allegiance to Bama.

However, the more I try to box this state out like Antonio McDyess (Bama,
Class of 1995), its persistence, humidity, and insects make me curse your name, Alabama,
for my brick Tuscaloosa house is not prepared to handle the nuances of the Bama
summer, as I have had to call BAMA
Extermination to kill large cockroaches, (the biggest in the South, sick and prideful Bama
residents exclaim) and I have sent invoices to Jud, my landlord here in Alabama

from BAMA
Heating and Cooling, who have repaired my air-conditioner so that the Bama
heat will not conquer mentality, for despite my denial, I am in Alabama
now, a different world of bad pizza, no bagels, and Bama-
themed restaurants with Bama-
centric oil paintings, documenting the Top 50 football plays in the history of Alabama.

However, after about a year or so in Alabama,
I embraced the lack of subtleness of Bama:
I started going to football games and found myself cheering for Bama,
Checking ESPN.COM for recruitment reports and eventually resorting to Bama
Messageboards due to their insider information about all things Bama,
and finding some pretty sweet deals on Alabama

merchandise, such as my now famous red headband with Bama
stitched across the front, not only fashionable but practical, as it keeps sweat from turning my eyes Bama
crimson from irritation, a good thing as the last time I went to the eye doctor (in NJ, not Bama),
he mentioned that my eyelids had become inflamed due to presumably said sweat and the Alabama
allergy season, which, admittedly, is an apt metaphor for the Alabama
condition, this delightful time warped brutality, so magnificently Bama.

And thus, as I return home from Alabama, friends ask me,
"Bama, huh? How is it down there?" and I reply, "You know, Bama's not so bad."
They look at me suspiciously, as if Alabama has changed me somehow, bludgeoned me with its Bama-tude and broken my spirit, and even though I'm home in New Jersey, home of pretty Italian girls and my grandmother's cooking, that somehow, inexplicably, I'd rather be back in Bama.