Texas

You have proved me wrong. It is easy to love you.

You, in all your vastness and freedom, your brick walls and rotten remnants of wooden fences. Your stray dogs chasing children on bikes they outgrow too fast. Your paintings made in basements, unforgettable music played in smoky dive bars, never ending ribbons of concrete leading to everything and nothing. The kaleidoscope of vultures feeding on black and white roadkill, red dirt, and warm chocolate cattle is imminently enchanting.

Your flags, your signs, your impending passion for passion, albeit loud, is quietly rooted in oil wells and sweet tea. Smiles and “ma’ams” flow without barriers, despite the muted tones of your landscapes, despite the burning fires in your alleys, and chalky Xs on the doors. Colors burst from your carefully hidden graffiti walls, disrupting the quiet Sunday liquor store slumber. Your dowtowns echo sirens and love with such fervor, that it now sounds like a national anthem. In all your vastness and freedom, with words people outgrow too fast, with your quiet magic of an empty field before a tornado, prove me right Texas, make it easy to leave you.