Sage Brush Excursions

 

#1: Standing at the Trail Head

It’s the first day, sentenced to the outback excursion.
We’ll be roughing it, expected to get a grip on life,
learn new things, adapt, find personal atonements.

The time has come. It’s time to stop wearing
maniac queen crowns. Stop spending all this time
staring through rearview mirrors. Focus now,
look deeper into windshield futures
at the desert vacancies overhead.

Head into the tack shed, clutch this oversized
bright blue and black backpack. It becomes
an anvil pushing vertebrae to their threshold.
Rummage inside with dirt-crusted fingernails,
find peanut butter globs baked to a crisp,
roasting beneath July’s fireball sun.

“Leave no trace,” they say. “Pack it in,
Pack it out.” Go on SOLO time, quiet down
to embrace the wilderness’s jarring impact.

Fireflies cycle by, ivory dandelion strands
cling to oily hair, cleansed by freezing
Colorado River water
and biodegradable
soap flakes.

 

#2: At the Truck Stop Salon

Personal details are drawn in memoir glass
stained moments in the desert chapel of Catharsis.
Right now, we’re stranded souls. For the time being,
we’re wandering around an adolescent purgatory.

Right now, we’re studying survival skills,
acing outdoors 101 instead of Algebra,
American Lit, and whatever else existed
on the ordinary, academic curriculum.

We’re perfecting the craft of scooping ramen noodles
from sandy bowls, improving the use of twig stick
spoons. We’re inspired to keep going by
the magical way bundles of sage brush
create magnificent, campfire explosions.

We’re huddling together on dead logs,
wearing slick rain jackets as cozy pajamas.

We’re making up rowdy, epic songs.
Laughing, securing deep bonds together.

From this, we know we’re not alone.

We’re part of the troubled teen pack.
We’re the wild girls, getting in touch
with nature, embracing primitive,
feral sides, washing our hair
in remote truck stops sinks,
at gas station salons.

Decades later, this complex
nostalgia still hangs, draping
over the top of Bowtie and Corona arch.

These memories dangle forever.
They are repelling cords framing
picturesque, Moab sunsets.

Ally Campanozzi started writing in middle school and has been expanding her passion since. Her background includes a BA in Psychology and an MA in Creative Writing from SNHU. Much of her writing comes from a passion for destigmatizing mental health through awareness and empathy. Some of her work has appeared in a few collections online, including publications by The Black Mountain Press, Cathexis NW Press, and The Bangalore Review. Her YA novel, “Crow Paths” focuses on healing from adoption/PTSD/ and other mental health issues. She lives in Colorado with her husband and their cats.

Header image: We adopted Roxas a little bit after losing one of our cats abruptly to cancer.
Though I was very heartbroken, Roxas has been a really special light to help my husband and I through our healing process from the trauma and grief.