There’s a point at which there are diminishing returns with regard to learning more about a place, a culture, a collective mindset, a community fever.

There’s a point at which it becomes time to pray with your feet. I’m at that point. I’m not an investigative journalist nor do I want to be one. I’m a creator. I want to create. As Richard Siken says, I’m just a writer. I write things down. That’s what I do and what I need to do. I need to create. I need to bring beauty to what’s awful, to what we want to look away from, to what we want to deny and suppress and ignore. But the beauty part is key. Beauty first, beauty always.

I don’t want to be pulled further into what this place is and does and isn’t and doesn’t do. I don’t want to be somewhere that takes and takes and takes everything from me, leaving no me left to love, to grow, to write, to create.

I’m leaving, come hell or high water. There, I said it. It’s time. It’s beyond time. My return to this place in March was necessary because of my health, because of my trauma, because I had issues to resolve with my husband, and because I needed to make sure I’d done all I could possibly do to be part of this community. I’ve done those things now, and I’m done.

I’m going to Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri in September. I’m looking at MFA programs in Oklahoma while I’m there. I’m evaluating the healthcare system, housing costs and availability, and employment opportunities. I have family in Oklahoma. My family. My people. Oklahoma, my home, my home, my home.

I’m going to need help to do this in the form of love, support, and understanding. There’s so much more trauma for me to address now after living in Utah for five years and Southern Utah for three years. I’m a strong person, but I’m now a broken person. I can come back. I know I can. I can become who I am again, who I’m losing, who I may have lost.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be fifty-two. One year ago, I was radioactive. I was sitting in a rented tiny home overlooking the Virgin River Gorge because I had to be isolated for several days. I spent hours talking to Jose Faus on the phone after watching the gorge all day. I had just started writing poetry again. I read a short piece to Jose over the phone as he fell asleep. Maybe my words put him to sleep. That’s OK. I always fall asleep reading my own writing, too. Anyone out there with insomnia might consider using my work to help them regulate their sleep.

Seven years ago, I was sitting in a hospital room in Kansas City with my husband, my legs under constant pressure and a breathing device on the table that I had to use every thirty minutes or so—the former to prevent leg clots and the latter, I think, to prevent a pulmonary embolism. I’d just had my thyroid removed to cure my autoimmune thyroiditis. They found tumors during the procedure, but the doctor assured me they wouldn’t be malignant. He came into my room all ego and narcissism and said there was only a one-percent chance the tumors would be cancerous. That’s why he went easy, left a little tissue in sensitive places. That’s why he didn’t remove the lymph nodes. Then he wished me a happy birthday. The pathology report came in a week later. It was cancer, and it hadn’t all been resected.

What will tomorrow bring? My husband and I plan to look at the stars with a telescope we’re borrowing. I plan to visit a bookstore. I plan to play with our dog, Lexi. I plan to write and write and write and read and read and read. That’s the plan. We’ll see what actually happens.

Love to those dealing with health issues, emotional issues, addictions, dependencies, and any form of pain or suffering. Love to those who’ve almost died and managed to survive. Love to those who tried to survive and didn’t manage to do so. Love to you beyond place, beyond time, beyond loss, beyond memory.

Love to you all. All of you, love.

Ad astra per aspera. PrairyErth, we are one.

It’s not Oklahoma’s fault that I was abused in Oklahoma, that I was raped in Oklahoma, that I was trafficked within and beyond Oklahoma. Humans destroy each other. Humans destroy the land. The land never destroys us. The land never trafficks us. The land never rapes us. The land never abuses us. The land never destroys itself.

I am grateful for this pain. This pain is a compass. This pain is a signal. This pain is my dearest friend, my greatest protector, my guide, my heart. This pain is everything.

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. ― Matsuo Bashō