Hometown Highway

They’re building a highway

through my hometown

right down the middle

diagonal

the only way to properly

cut a sandwich

the only way to build a highway

evidently

they’ve torn up my favorite old road

the road where I learned how to drive

Where I watched lightning

with my sister

in the middle of the night

The road where I tried to end my life

the first time

pedal to the fucking metal

closed eyes

The road I drove home

the first time I ever got high

because all the lights on all the other roads

never turned green

that road no longer runs out west

it’s been dug up

funny how the dirt

turns back to dirt

Now no one will believe me

when I say I am a country girl

because my hometown

doesn’t look like it used to

but I know the smell of the lake

when the days get longer

And I know the beauty of the Buffalo

on the sacred island of antelope

the only church I’ve ever known

I grew up on

dirt road horizons

and fields of gold

They’re building a highway

through my hometown

and just as the dirt

I turn back

to dirt