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There is a field of summer grasses behind the house, yellowed by morning frost and autumn sun, littered with the rusting corpses of old farm machinery, its purpose long forgotten.

Down the street there is a crumbling garage that smells of oil and gasoline, all dust and aging radio, some country singer nobody remembers rasping about a place that once was home.

The forest across the highway is silent in the heart of winter, a lone set of boot prints sentenced to obscurity as snowfall erases each impression.

It’s pretty here, mama,

away from the noise.

but I can’t stay.

I don’t want to be forgotten, too.