Where the Dust Knows My Name

Ramona rose with the sun, soft hills like hands on my back. I left her quietly, heart in glovebox, the dust already whispering like she knew I'd come back a stranger. Hesperia stretched out sharp, a dry lung breathing sky. No one calls your name there, you just echo. Even the road looked tired of holding me up. The light cracked open, and I didn’t close my eyes. Where the dust knows my name, but not the person I became. It remembers my silence, not my song. Visalia glowed like a promise, but I passed through it like a dream I couldn’t hold. I was thinking of someone else, and still, the flowers bent toward me, like they believed I might stay. Fresno’s edge is made of breath and roads without apologies. I left a voice on a porch there, mine, or someone else's, I couldn’t tell. I walked past the dog that should’ve known I’d changed. But I changed too late. Where the dust knows my name, not for glory, not for grace, just for the footprints I didn’t bother to cover. Watsonville tastes like strawberry ghosts. I danced once, just to feel my bones. There was someone there, eyes like soft thunder. They said nothing. I said less. And then I left. Like always. Santa Rosa didn’t ask where I’d been. It just opened its sky like it knew I’d need one more name before I stopped moving. The road fell quiet. My voice did too. And in the hush I heard myself. Lassen rose like memory turned to stone. No people. No noise. Just the ground breathing heat and the wind asking nothing. I sat. For once, I didn’t reach for the next town. Where the dust knows my name, I am not lost. Just silent. Just still. Still someone. Still known.