I'm going to drive home and it will be cloudy. Brown then white then brown again and that tunnel I hold my breath in and I wonder if you held yours too. I hope it snows on my way and I hope those granules accumulate and enshroud me until I'm clean in a winter baptism. Salt and salt then juniper trees then sagebrush and the lonely gas station I find because I exited too early in the small town that knows it's being used and people never stay. Mountains that curve and bend into hills and I fall back in time into earth tones and hard hats and fear and fear and fear. I feel out of place in my red dress and my chest tightens. Compressing, compressing, compressing until I can't breathe and I feel so small and the hills so small grow smaller and smaller and they box me in and I can't breathe oh God I know you're not there but please let me breathe. Winding roads wound tighter and tighter that make me feel like I'm driving in circles. It's my worst fear that I've grown too big for this place and I want it to stop I need it to end and I cry out when I see it, I grow small again as it comes closer and when it comes to me, when I come to it it gives me my chest back and gently places my lungs inside. I am clean and it knows I'm clean and I can be here once again. I drive and it's cloudy and I am home.
I'm going home for Thanksgiving soon and while my heart feels so empty it still pounds with rage.