Out West
Out West
Every Joshua tree in the desert sags a smile and waves its oversized hand
The patchy desert symbolizes Empty America
Land of the Free
Because there’s so much real estate nature is leaving up for the take
You don’t know where you’re going
Encircled by mountains glittered with rocks that take us out of the deindustrialized oilfields
But it feels like time stops and we’re at the end of the World
At least we’re getting close
Layers of peaks and troughs
Layered like a cake
Candy-colored fungi that decorates eroding rocks like a Christmas tree
Complemented by yuca plants, the pineapples arid cousin
Ashes dissolve back into the soil
Aside fractures of a dead tree
Put down by a short half-life
If you take one foot off the faultline
It all comes crashing down
So do your expectations
Even at the smallest elevation
You wash your armpits with a quartz of gold
And the nearby cactai mirrors your behavior
The wind
A ventriloquist that slaps your face with its own hair
Out West
anything is possible and you feel it
As you drive by the Adopt-A-Highway sign
Shoutout to the Choctaw Muskegee Nation
Every thread of cheetgrass you pull out to make way for the native only uncovers more empty real estate
A plot of land that’s yet to unfold
Makes you wonder who or what’s really invasive
Out West
Geography matters more and less
Testing our limits on freeways and
Connecting us across lines that only constellations can map out