#sadnecessary

The sun is a rusted coin pressed against the throat of the hills, and the wind tastes of cedar and things left to die. I am seventeen years of age, yet my skin feels like the porch wood splintered by the heat, thirsty for a rain that never arrives. I wish the dirt beneath my fingernails was gold instead of grit, that the cattle lowing at the fence were singing hymns of glass. I want to wake where the air doesn't smell of diesel and sweat, where the cicadas don’t scream like a heart breaking in the grass. The barbed wire fence is a necklace I never asked to wear, holding in the cows, holding in the quiet, holding in me. I look at the horizon and see a red-clay mouth wide open, swallowing every dream I tried to plant beneath the mesquite tree. Why must the harvest be so heavy, and the pockets stay so light? I want a sky that doesn't bruise purple every single night. I want to be the hawk, not the field mouse hiding in the row, I want to go where the shadows don’t know my name, and the wild onions don't make me cry for a home I’m forced to sow. But the crickets keep their rhythm, and the grease stays on my hands, and I am just another seedling gasping in these hardened lands. I am reaching for a different sun, but my roots are made of stone, praying for a harvest that feels like more than being alone.

https://soundcloud.com/luvmeli