This is the year I let go.

The year I move into my own,

away from those who bring the rain

and hold on tight to the sun instead.

The year I learn to love myself.

The hard parts which used to be soft.

The soft parts which used to be hard.

That voice whispering behind closed doors.

Never heard but only thought.

We follow the road for a bit and then turn to cut back along the draw.

Chasing a game trail which never ends.

Weaving through creosote and mesquite and there I let the horse find his way.

We push through the brush.

Through places where the earth has turned upwards and rocks stand on edge like knife blades. I stop to let the horse graze and the dogs rest, watching the animals look back and forth until my own stomach growls and we move on past the draw and back to the road again.

I’ve been torn up in this book we call life.

Lost in its pages and chapters.

Yet the skin on my hand is still cracked,

and the furrow still there between my brows.

I press a hand to it now to stop the pain.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

We’d be less than human if we weren’t blemished a bit, imperfect in our perfection.

A constant cast of lovers and haters.

Of those who will never know.

Sometimes leaving is not enough,

you must stay gone a while. You must stay silent.

Fighting the storm which works so hard to rise,

the wind surges and sea swells spilling within.

So I go.

I go where the air runs wild, tangled with musk and pine and the faint memory of campfire.

Where the stars fight for center stage and the elk slinks in silence.

Where the clouds lay like whispers in the palm of the sky.

If you’re quiet enough you can hear them.

#poetryisnotdead #saddletramp #liveauthentic