i am a girl but most days i feel like a question mark. people throw their looks at me then back at my mama sister and papa who are all pale as oleanders and then back at me brown and ripe as a peach and i see their puzzle faces trying to understand where i fit. people ask me where i’m from but i know they really mean: who do you belong to?

right now i am on the road somewhere between georgia and new mexico. in the minivan with the windows rolled down my ashy legs burn delicious in the heat. my older sister eve’s fine brown hair blows in the breeze. mama with one hand on the wheel. smiles. a violin case in the passenger seat. the neck tipped down like a bottle being emptied into the sink. all of us heading toward a watermelon sunrise. three tumbleweeds just blowing in the wind. singing: THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS at the top of our lungs.

i am a girl on a highway stretching on forever. somewhere between georgia and new mexico. where the red land and the purple sky and my ashy legs and my brown haired sister and my freckled mama and all the songs of childhood flung into motion belong.