The 5th of July

Yesterday was irrelevant in my America.

My America is wild, mirroring the most primordial parts of us, the parts that still act with automatic integrity and virtue.

My America is vast, a fact that I fear only those like me can corroborate thanks to running more miles through our eyes than most.

My America is splintered, torn apart at the seams not by conflicting ideologies but by a long standing disregard for the land and those close to it.

My America is scraped and scarred, littered with the asphalt trappings of our incessant need to try to tame and subjugate it.

My America is costly, a byproduct of our ol’ fashioned grit and tenacity being usurped by privilege and access.

My America is on fire, both metaphorically and in the realest sense of the word as it gets warmer and drier with 93% of the west experiencing extreme drought.

My America isn’t concerned with the color of your skin, the flavor of your faith, or the choices that you make about your genitals.

My America isn’t mine at all, but is, instead, a tapestry of stolen homeland, stewarded by a lasting lineage of folks that have never and likely will never acquire the respect, honor, and admiration that they deserve from those that oppress them.

My America is not a product of politics or policy but is, instead, made of dirt, sea, and sky. It carries with it the hopes and failures of countless human animals but is, in truth, an indifferent swathe of wildness.

My America was here long before we were and it will persist long after we become dust. What a privilege it is to float across this place, a speck of dust barely touching a page in its grand story.

My America feels like home. Say what you will about the human apparatus through which it functions but I will continue waking up every day, grateful for the American dirt beneath my feet.