Katherine Belt

There was a girl who wore rustic leather
boots on her feet, but she did not know that
she was wearing a cow.

The scent of mingled dirt and skin would then meet
her nose, and she would feel like she was free,
and the desert rolled on.

The dead trees gestured wildly in the breeze,
not letting go like the tumbleweed would do;
she thought that she was free.

Only the highways dared to disturb the
eternal desert, dividing mesas
like a clock does to time.

She tugged at her braid, twisted and coiled like a
chaotic cobra always dancing, and she,
she thought that she was free.

But the light blinded her eyes, and the scorching
sun branded her like what she wore on her feet;
she was the Desert's cattle.

She met a boy, cool like the water that
flooded through her dreams every evening;
he was the Ocean's Son.

His eyes would wander over her face as
dark slithered across the plateaus and she,
she saw she was not free.

He left the Grand Canyon in her heart that
year. She saw that water could carve out, just
as much as it could fill.

She would walk through the sand after he left
listening to the wind which would whisper.
It echoed eternally:

Not free. Not free. Not free.

Back