Words of Acadiana

  Cursed & Cured Out in the desert where the witches dwell, I found my name carved in a drought-bleached bone— a curse whispered under a neon sign flickering like a dying prayer above a dead-end bar. Whiskey burned its truth into my tongue, country music bleeding from the jukebox like a wound that never learned to heal. Unrequited love sat beside me, boot heels kicked up, acting like he owned the night. Ghosts drifted between the cacti, soft as the sigh of a past life; they knew my story, how I’d worn my boots thin chasing someone who couldn’t turn toward me no matter how bright I burned. But the witches circled back at dawn, their shawls catching the bourbon-colored light, their voices a low rattle of mercy. They crushed mesquite leaves, mixed them with dust and moonwater, and painted a sigil on my chest— half curse, half cure, all truth. When the spell settled into my ribs, I felt the desert’s pulse replace my own. It didn’t promise love, only clarity. Only survival. Only the...

  I feel right here— lit up in my own ruin above a dead-end street where West Texas forgets its name and the night comes down heavy, black as a shut eye. My neon spine crackles, a wounded halo flickering over gravel and broken glass. I buzz like a prophecy that no one ever wanted— calling in the lonely, the hunted, the ones who bleed their truths only when the whiskey starts to drag open their ribs. Inside, country music twangs with a desperate tremor, a steel guitar bent like a witch’s hand curling around the heart. The floorboards remember everything— every confession whispered on the ballroom floor, knees bruised, souls cracked open under the weight of wanting too much. The air is soaked in whiskey breath and old sins warming in the dark. I glow for them— all those tired spirits trying to outrun their shadows, trying to dance their way back into their own bodies. And though the night is thick with ghosts that never learned to leave, I hold steady, casting red light like a spell ...

  Love Letter to the Disco Era Mirrors multiply the life I’ve lived— Confessions spin, the night forgives. Silk, fur, and rhythm collide— The Disco Era never died. Dear Disco, You are more than a genre, more than a decade caught between revolution and excess—you are resurrection. In the strobe-lit temples of your worship, we learned to become infinite. Sequins and sweat mingled like holy water as bodies surrendered to the beat, each pulse a promise that the night would hold us, heal us, forgive us. Under mirrored ceilings, we were a thousand selves reflected back, refracted into light. You were freedom in motion—heels clicking against linoleum altars, hips swaying to liberation’s heartbeat. The world outside might have been cruel, divided, hungry for conformity, but inside your glittering sanctuaries, we built galaxies out of desire and defiance. The bass was prophecy. The synths were spells. Every song was a chance to be reborn, if only until dawn. Even now, your pulse hums beneat...

  Missing the desert is like missing a limb. The body remembers what the mind tries to forget—the weight of the sun on your shoulders, the dry whisper of wind that coats your skin in dust so fine it feels like memory itself. Even after you leave, the desert lingers. It clings to your pores, to the corners of your mind, to the ache behind your ribs that flares like phantom pain when the air grows too damp, too full of noise. There is a silence in the desert that becomes a part of you. It moves beneath your skin, a pulse that syncs with the stillness of distant mesas and the soft hum of power lines vibrating under a wide, indifferent sky. When you’re gone, the absence hums louder than the place ever did. It’s a ghost—warm and hollow at once. Only the lonely understand this kind of missing. The kind that has no face, no end. The desert was never meant to love you back, yet you crave its cold nights and cruel light, the way it stripped you bare until you were nothing but nerve and dust...

  “Motel 6, Alamogordo” The super moon is swollen tonight— a silver heart beating above the gypsum dunes, casting milklight on the parking lot where moths tremble against the neon vacancy sign. In Room 112, the tub fills slow, water whispering like a secret I once told the stars. Tequila hums soft beneath my ribs, a low electric murmur— heat loosening the borders between body and sky. The desert breathes through the thin motel curtains, cool and mineral, carrying the sound of trains, coyotes, and some ancient song older than prayer. I close my eyes and drift. The tile floor hums with portals— tiny vortexes opening beneath my skin, memories slipping through the cracks of time. Somewhere, I’m barefoot on white sand, calling out to no one. Somewhere, the moon answers back in a voice that tastes like salt and smoke. I am the siren of this roadside night, singing to the Western wind— half love, half haunting. Every mile I’ve ever driven echoes in the hollow of my chest. And the moon—my ...

  A Farewell Spell for Marfa There’s a certain kind of dusk that only belongs to Marfa—the kind where the light bleeds slow, like a wound refusing to close. Dust rises from the road in amber halos, and the air hums with that strange, invisible electricity that’s neither joy nor sorrow, but something in between. Out here, endings don’t announce themselves; they just drift in on the wind, quiet as tumbleweed shadows. The desert feels hollow tonight. The motel signs buzz faintly, the horizon wears its bruise of burnt pink and violet, and the ghosts of all my former selves wander the edges of town, whispering promises they couldn’t keep. Even the wind sounds different—less like a song, more like a sigh. Marfa was once a kind of spell for me. The wide, merciless sky taught me surrender. The desert dust buried my noise, my need to belong. There were nights when I swore I could feel the old witches stirring under the mesquite—old souls who taught me that solitude is its own kind of prayer...