you are elements combined,

earth, air, fire, wine

once there was a girl who knew when it was time to leave. she didn't make the rules. she just knew how to read.

she would start in arizona, to remember where she'd been, where she first lifted her face up, where she was first alone. needs to be in the wild places that tucked her away, the trees that roared over her while she slept, the mountains she climbed, the fires at night. wants to see again the first place she chose to be. -

wants to go up into utah, be in a landscape she's never seen before, heat and arches, ground flashing gold. her head is full of things she wants to lay down, give back to the ground. needs new things to fill her head, things she can't imagine, make her remember why she was created, what it feels like to journey to a place called zion. she likes the way it sounds against her teeth, thrumming like she just bit into a peach pit. would name her daughter after such a country if she had one. -

has to cross through idaho, forgotten country, because she heard once it was beautiful. wants to stand on ground someone called sacred, even if its name means nothing. wants to be willing to listen. maybe then she will be blessed enough to hear all the things she never expected, thought she didn't want. things she laughed at in her heart like sarai, but needed more than warm soil on the flats of her feet. -

needs to walk in eastern oregon, in a desert but not her desert, because her heart has been limping for months and she needs even ground, wide and unfamiliar sky. wants to drive at night, wants to have a beer and taquitos at a mexican food place with outdoor seating, table all to herself, read a book, flirt with the waiter. silence, sun. hand out the window. -

wants to be in washington state, under the trees that flick by like parenthesis, safe under their years. has to trek to the strange, shining city her sister chose. needs to be with someone who hears her, needs to see this woman's beauty, her element for this season. wants to be with someone else who is looking too. -

and then she will follow this gleaming sea, this progression of dunes and dusks down the coast, through mountains and woods, through washington, through oregon, to california, where the light itself will change. -

she will cross the state line and get out of the car and put the palm of her hand flat against the warm ground, chunky like salsa, because in arizona she cut things down, but here she first learned to coax them from the earth. the land remembers her palms. -

she will wear only dresses on california roads, as per solemn tradition. will buy fruit as she goes, will let the wind dry her hair, will sleep outside so she won't miss his call, in case it comes. -

here she will beg forgiveness, will forgive anyone who has ever been, because her confusion will end one day only if she does this and one other thing. -

here she will remember some things, and let other ones go, will promise to walk, and keep walking, because her life is a trail with her guide just disappearing over the rise.