ears

In the summer of 2018, I travelled across the west of America to see my three sisters and old lovers and new. I was 21. My cherry red ford ranger got me every where I needed with just gas and the occasional oil change. She required no maintenance. I always had a place to sleep.

My oldest sister was expecting her second and her baby girl was obsessed with my little pony and the first trolls. I hung out with her when my sister went to some training in Albuquerque. She could barely say her name, missing one syllable of it. She was tiny and I teased her relentlessly. There was this moment where I was listening to music with headphones in and she tried it out, enamored and glowing and sparkly.

My one New Mexico hook up was with a guy who had the same birthday as my mom, a Libra like me. We met up in Santa Fe and he smoked me out. Drove crazy on the back roads. Took me to an outside art installation and then a trampoline park. He had an semi automatic in his car, probably a hand gun too. He wanted to be bad but he was so lonely. He had acne scars and his dick was huge. I sat on it in the front seat of his rebuilt 4runner and he bought me turquoise earrings I wore for the rest of the summer.

My sister took us to Flagstaff and we just drove around her old stomping grounds and listened to Frank Ocean which is basically all we do when we hang out. Drive and listen to music. It's the best. I love her so much. I sent the hook up videos of me getting out of the hotel pool in his earrings and red tie bottoms. He didn't reply.

As I left New Mexico, I saw 50 hot air balloons and laughed and laughed. The drive to my childhood home is all on I-25 so it makes for easy travel. You get to slow down throughout Colorado to open your window and smoke a carefree cigarette or at least that's what I did. It's what my parents would have done too. Flip around the radio and just watch.

My knees got tan. I was also religiously using tanning lotion, the hempz stuff that smells like bananas. I felt very good in my body. Tanning lotion does that. And not having a job.

I stopped in Bozeman where my ex lived and went to a street dance with him. We took dance together as kids so this was special. I got tipsy and when we got back to his house he gave me ice water and put me to sleep in this random side room on an air mattress. I tried knocking on his door, I couldn't find the door out to the garage for my tooth brush but he didn't answer. It was pouring rain the next morning and we drove around listening to nothing on the radio. He had an orange element. We got donuts and coffee from this local place that has pots on the floor collecting the rain. The owner told me he was a cheap date for taking me there.

Idaho was scary steep to drive through. I'm afraid of heights and I remember holding my breath a lot. Really intense terrain.

I got to Spokane in time to go to that big basketball tournament. My sister, the one closest in age to me, her boyfriend was playing in it. His high school best friends were there and we partied. I remember laying down in the back of someone's car. There weren't enough seats. My sister lived in a haunted apartment with a gorgeous view. We got Sonic. We partied again and I remember laying in the grass and looking over and seeing this guy’s butt, he was peeing through a chain link fence.

I saw rolling wheat fields between Washington and Oregon. They looked painted, so surreal. I found an abandoned town with a church cradled by big branching trees. It just one corner of a road and I could have stayed there forever.

My longest stop was with my middle sister. My only weed smoking sister, my sister with the same rising sign as me. Her baby was just under two at the time. Speaking jibberish, cute as a button and grumpy. She was obsessed with Coco. Knew the whole movie by heart. We went to library and to a lake up the mountains to swim. I have never seen a mom play so imaginatively with her child. We spent the fourth at a street fair and some little kid got lost. My sister got hired at a dispensary while I was there.

She was my wingman to my first bar hookup. We met this guy, he was like 6’5”, college cross country body. His name was Dennis and somehow he hot, 11 years older than me. He was staying on an air mattress at his friend's house. My sister went back with us, we smoked and she made sure I was comfy and told me she'd come pick me up in the morning. He had more experience than anyone I'd been with, he was old. He was a good kisser. I remember he wanted me reverse but with my feet on his thighs. That didn't work for me. I have always liked prone. Or to be lazy slow on top. Really just soaking on it with small grinds on my part. He lasted for a long time and he bruised me in a bunch of different places. I loved it. He bit my left ear so hard that three months later, mishapen freckles formed there. I left a magic bracelet and couldn't leave it behind. When I went to pick it up he has wearing it.

I resumed stationary life, working at a Safeway and eventually dropping out of college that fall. I crashed my ranger in the snow and was helped by a fairy woman named Willow whom I thanked with the ounce of weed i had in my truck.

Now I drive a green subaru named Penny, after peanuts pig pen, lovingly. She's taken me lots of places too. Her radio doesn't work.

I went in for my first ever dermatology appointment this October and she methodically scanned me. Placed a magnifying glass to my skin. She flagged the bite freckles on my ear, one needed a biopsy. And I knew it'd be okay because I can recall it's exact origins. A summer of exploration and self assuredness. I was sad to lose a little momento from her era. The earrings long gone, one freckle of the three cut up and dissected.

My name is Samantha and it means she who listens. And my favorite thing is to hear men moan from my means. Or to hear my nieces and nephews sing to their favorite movie. To hear them say anything really. To hear my sisters laugh. To listen to my favorite songs with them sitting beside me.