my grandmother's farm

my grandmother owns a farm out in
southern virginia, which is
redneck land and
Trump/Pence 2020 land. 
i feel insecure when i'm down there;
nearly everyone who lives in the area
wants things to stay the same.
i'm not straight.
i'm not cisgender. 
i'm not their idea of what a 
near-teenage girl should be. but
they don't know that. 
i'm sitting on the hill that overlooks the
cool spring river,
flowing into a lake. i think that
today is going to be the
most beautiful day of the year.
the wind whispers over my
scarred face. 
the sun beats down on me,
but gently, 
as though it knows that 
any form of pressure will
break me. my fingers
sift through broken rocks and i wonder
how were they broken? when you
look at a rock, you may wonder
what gems lie inside or
what kind of rock it is or
how it was formed. i think of
where it came from and
how it came here. 
how did i end up here?

i finish reading my book,
On Writing by Stephen King and
i lie down on the 
almost-neon-green grass, 
stare up at the sky.

the sky is black.
we just think it's blue.