Red dirt kicked up, staining my soles, stuck in the cracks of the canvas and denim, bits of dew-wet grass trail behind when I step onto the bridge, I run my hand along the old wood, pretend all these trees I see are mine. Not only mine, but also mine, since all of it is all of ours, or, it can, should, will be if we grow together, if we remedy that fact that there is still a you that cannot coexist with any of my needs. Fingertips red from the roughness in texture, a stray nail trips me, and I fall unhindered and heavy to the ground. Unexpected, with the being alone, but bothersome, since I used to not be so. Cloud around me covers me with grit, and I stand and I walk through the gnats and the flies, and I wave at the squirrels, and they ignore me only a little. This is their right, of course, so I barely mind it.
The sound of gravel grows loud, the feel of it under worn out shoes, and I know for sure I'll be glad to get where I'm going, to end the heat burning my skin red. It will all always turn the color of the dirt, the color of the blood, but still the birds will chirp, quietly, just for those that can listen. When I finally convince myself to leave, I'll pretend it wasn't hard, but the impartial judges, the trees and ground and stream of my home will know that I am sorry, so sorry, to even have that dream in mind. I will decide to stay, since I'm sorry enough to get better, since nothing abandoned is fixed until it's found again. Skip a rock, the fish ripple, unimpressed, because they were here first, and they still know best. The head of a deer, killed and otherwise ignored and discarded, stands watch over you, as you wait for the love that was, long ago, promised. All for all, you and the lightning bugs know, but wait, wait for your turn, wait for the vines to grow. Hear frogs croak, watch the mulch dry in the beating sun, breathe deep the strong smell of the cows, and consider that you don't always have to run. Dust on the mantle, fireplace long empty, dust on the antiques, this place is not abandoned, my family's old half loved place just needs some fixing up. Crooked foundation, cracks run up the walls, the fan had never even been turned off, the concrete waggles its finger outside, since it's just not your time to grow older, who cares what's fair, you can get out or wait. You can want all you want, and pray all the day, but, kid, it's just not that simple, no one is really that brave. No one, if you recall what you've heard, can be rightfully put to blame, since it's not fair to the winners to know they'll always stand atop graves. Sit on the rusted swing set, watch birds pick the seed from the gravel, glue closed the hole in your shoe, and remember. You are allowed to name this place home. Everyone you know has a gun and a smoke, everyone you know does not have to fear getting old, nor could they pay to live all that way, bones litter the roads, bones are marked with large stones, with the beams of the railroad, the grass grown long, not yet too much so, parading in the wind, you are from this world, so you can say it's yours. Legs tired of walking, try running, it's new, they've just not decided, maybe there's something else to do, one day it won't matter, it'll all be alright, but you might as well laugh at some jacked up truck and kick dust up as it drives, too fast, right by. Remember that you're from this awful place too, that the wrong people don't need to be louder than you, hand on old bark, pinch out the splinters, know that there is nothing they can do to make you the sinner. The sound of squirrel feet scampering, scratching up tree bark, know it sounds much the same as piles of leaves, swirled up around by the breeze, and the red dust under your jagged nails has always been dirty. There's no way to wash it, it will stick to your skin, but you can still always get up off the ground, accept it, and begin again. Remember the name of the places around, where they don't like you to be so proud, where they say you're gone, or new, or wrong, and take this place into your hands, and call it what it is.
You are allowed to say you're home. You are allowed to stay long enough to see it, to make it, to force it to grow. See the bench where you learned that you can be sure of yourself, even here, even now, how you are, and run your hand along the chipping paint, remember it always can change. The nature of the place, the red dirt mixed with gravel, and the rivers with beds of clay, and the hills they insist on calling mountaintops, these things will hold the same animals, same constant strong love, as they did at dawns break, and only the awful, only the evil, only the ugly is something that can't stay. Remember where you're from, and decide that maybe, just maybe, if you can live with the shame and the fight and the pain, you are not required to take a new name.
