Borger, TX

Three days of driving
Three days of riding
In the backseat
To the middle of nowhere
Where the air is brown with dirt
Crusted and thick
it sits in the cracks of trees
and chokes the sun
Black mist spews from smoke stacks
I climbed a tree wearing white
And when I came down
My clothes were black

From Pittsburgh
To this tiny town
With no movie theatre
And one high school
I wanted out of here
The Dairy Queen shut down
The bowling alley reigned supreme
With buzzing neon lights
An ancient witness to smoke-filled nights
It's where I first felt
What it was like
To not be able
To breathe
That was the night that asthma found me
And I choked in the dark
And panic flooded my heart
Here...Take an ice cube to calm down
But it didn't and...
I couldn't
breathe
In that place
In that town

From point guard
To the bench
Asbestos filled buildings sag in disrepair
In the air there's a steady toxic stench
Like rotting eggs or burning rubber
Cracked sidewalks crumble under the burning sun's glare
Dead antique shops stare at passers by
Through cataract window eyes
And black asphalt tongues
Stretched out towards nothing but flat land
It's a solid hour to the nearest "city"

I left my home
Five years of this. Nothing.
Tell me what this is
If not suffering?

This is Texas.
Welcome home.

Have some asthma
Throw in some fear
How about your Dad gets cancer?
Do you like it here?