touching down
on a field of golden ripe wheat stalks,
she—mother, sister, lover,
car crash.
she cut the ties clean,
drove off, left the old parade
of dead faces and long stares.
her mother, her father,
those barrel mouths
spitting bullets made of
you’ll never be enough.

the roots?
they never reached deep.
shallow soil,
rocks full of their anger,
their ultimatums killed their child
before the first breath.
all she had left
was what is happening?
over and over
until it became
a silent chant
in her dry mouth.

doubt grew in her
like weeds in cracked pavement,
pushing through the silence,
splitting her skin open—
but no one noticed.
no one cared.

now,
she’s gone from them,
driving with the headlights off
into the deep black of
what’s next.
they don’t even know it,
but she buried them
back in that wheat field.
their words,
their bullets,
their roots—
all rotting in the dirt.