maybe freedom
costs some of your soul
nights alone, coyote eyes
sparkling like stars alight
circling
for freedom wants its pay
teeth clicking through desert air
breezing just past your heels
circling, circling, circling
waiting for its chance

like the ribcage
of the deer
lay hit aside the road
now begging to be
devoured
red and gnarled
against greying grass
vultures circling
eat eat eat
take a bite of what
now open bare to see
once hidden
under fragile skin

i am cowboy lonely
lost, haunting,
hoping to be found
the searchlight-sun hitting
across canyon walls
sagebrush vibrant
against rust-and-cream stone
or cast over fields of
sweetgrass and wildflower,
i stand on the horizon
with only the wind at my side,
in my ear,
watching the clouds ramble by

lush honeysuckle summer
emerald world, rainy day paradise
kissing goodbye on a dreary eve
a soaring shift
dusty orange burnt against a stark blue sky
iron-tinted stripes of rock
strata like open arms, welcome and beckon
holding you tight in the blazing sun
among cliffs, canyons, crags,
the damp greenery
forgotten in the arid breeze

born in a suburban valley,
but the appalachians raised me
weekends consisting of
getting lost in the hills
with my eyes and heart
filled with wonder,
this world soaking in
like rain to dry ground

my home soil was birthed
from ancient mountain tops,
the crests in the distance
having seen eras
far beyond our own
they roll like waves across
this landscape,
fields of grass and corn,
harvested crop with bolts of hay
wrapped tight in bulbous swirls

perhaps that’s why traveling
always feels like i never left;
nature invites my footfalls,
belonging to the earth there

to ponder where a soul is from
how old or new it is
who i was before this-
a deep connection to things,
tugging on my string and pulling me
toward certain places, or people,
connections that linger even when
i am no longer there,
or not with the people whose
bonds i’ve grown, forged
appearing on the horizons
growing close enough to touch

we all ponder, truly,
to know ourselves
who we are and who we
once were,
where we are meant to go
and if we are meant to be
what knowledge i must have
collected before now
what wonders i must have seen
if i yearn to search to find
and lose myself
once again

Change is tedious
and does not happen
in a single night

It takes time to
move, to uplift
to push and pressure
into your next form

Remember to be forgiving
it is not as if
the Rockies or
the Himalayas
punish themselves
for taking millions of years
to grow to their height

And it is not as if
the Appalachians feel down
about their change
from sky-cutting magnificence
to tired, rolling hills

Time touches us all
for better or for worse
for building us up
or eroding us away
but in the end

mountains are not
made with serenity.
their peaks are
not carved calmly,
nor carved neat.
we too cannot be made
gently,
or with careful precision.

Do not forget:
becoming
is as tumultuous
as orogeny

“what has changed since everything?”

at a glance,
very little.
my room is still
a messy grave.
i am still just surviving,
the way i was before.
but i have overcome
in this process
of becoming.
there is no more pretense
for who i must be.
no tether to
an overidealized self.
it’s scary, daunting-
but i am not alone.
i never was,
despite what i
was made to feel.
what fear was
hammered into me.
not
anymore.
since everything-

                          Everything has changed.