I Want

I want to feel better.
I want my eyes to only ache because there is dust in them.
I want to cough on branding smoke instead of exhaust fumes.
I want to see the land sprawled out and painted like a canvas map for my horse's hooves to roam.
I want to smell horse sweat and feel beads of it running down my face.
I miss seeing hooves slinging dirt across acres after a renegade heifer.
I haven't forgotten the feeling of turning a cow on the fence.
I haven't forgotten the pride which is in long manes and mustache knotted tails.
I want sage brush to buff against my legs and I want the sun to burn hot on my chaps.
I want wooden heeled boots puffing at the dusty desert's heart.
I want spring water on my lips and saddle pads that know nothing of being dry.
I want my hands to be cracked and bruised.
I want to hear a diesel engine growl into the morning darkness and I want to hear your voice in the old wooden tack shed.
I want to hold your callused hand.
I would cry your name into the desert if you weren't here.
I want to know better the minds of horses.
I want the tops of my hands to be red and my muscles aching.
I want my spurs to be rusted and know the hides of many horses.
I want my favorite color to be spring.
I want my horn wrap to be glassed over and blue.
I want my ropes to be melted and frayed and my boots and saddle to tell more stories than my lips.
I want the brim of my hat to shade my green eyes and I want that palm leaf almost worn through.
I want to know the country side, to know every canyon and every spring.
I want to doctor calves in the moonlight.
I want to become alike my role model.
I want the pages of my bible to look like they've been through hell.
I want to see my sister's braid dangling by her cantle bind.
I want my hands to have shaped words upon paper.
I want my heart to know God better.
I want to thrive in this heaven on earth.
I want to watch it play out through the tall desert grass fresh dewed by midnight's rain.

~Gussie

Fairytales

If I knew how I felt, I'd tell you. I really would;
But the music is too loud and my thought process is blurry.
Blurry all but Jesus and horses.
That's what stands at the end of my tunnel vision.
The sides are littered with handsome smiles and cowboys and ropes, you and the books I read last month.
They just fade in and out of perspective;
one minute in a state of perfection, the next a repetition of last night's terrors.
It's agonizing, the way it all whirls around like the hurricane that it is.
At the same instance, it has a sense of allure and charm, kind of like you.
The curtain falls each night like the end of a scene when the actors drop their masks and their faces beheld.
Acting starts in strife for perfection and ends in habit.
You become your mind's best self meanwhile destroying the originality and loveliness of who you genuinely are.
Truth be known, I've been acting for a while and I'm trying to learn how to act like me again.
Stop acting, I beg you.
Your dreams that lie each night on the dark side of your eyelids, listen to them. They are the prettiest things.
Now do you see?
It's obvious that if I knew how I felt, I'd tell you, I really would, but I can't even keep my nightmares and fairytales straight.

photo cred: google

Fire

I've grown accustomed to fire.
I'm even learning to breathe it.
If I want to win I'll have to drink it in like life water.
My inner turmoil will have to be drowned by dust and arena lights.
My doubts and fears will shutter at the sound of my war cries.
Grit will have to well up in the pit of my stomach and overflow out my throat.
I'll have to feel every inch of my body burning, and I'll love it.
I'll live for it.
I'm going to have to learn that focus is a state of mind not a mood; intensity is a choice not an emotion.
My demons will be shrieking their giddy laughter and my angels will be flailing to save me.
That's how I want it.
That's how it's going to be.
Everything I've longed for is slamming into my lap and I will fight for it.
I'm not letting go.
Not for a second.
So I'll douse myself in fire and let it wash over me and I'll run through it like a child in the rain.
I want to be baptized in it.
I'm looking for it and praying for it.
It's coming.
And I'm scared for you because my fire is burning,
and I'm going to pitch gasoline on it and let it burn.

~Gussie

The way the clouds kiss the sun goodnight..

I like the way the clouds kiss the sun goodnight and how they knead and fold over each other.
I like the smell of salty horse sweat, the kind that sticks to your skin and I like the way manes wave like a queen's hand, just as fitting as royalty.
The way the sun glares at my skin feels good.
I like my black leather jacket that hugs me at night and I love my spur's song.
I love the way a horse's breathe beats against the wind harmonizing with each foot fall.
I like the feel of tight broken in boots and the rocking of a loping horse.
I like it when my lips are painted and my face is covered in dirt.
I like the thrill of everything.
I like the thrill of horses moving beneath me and I like throwing my saddle over a big horse's back.
I like their oily hides greasing up my finger tips and their dark, secret holding eyes.
I liked it when you were around, I think I like it better now that you're not tho.
You were good at being bad for me, and I loved it.
I like memories and dreams.
I like horses lungs inhaling and exhaling in the same rhythm as mine and I love the way the deep blue sky kisses the moon good morning.

Rain

Rain patters down on the tin roof and it's a cold day in June.
Thank You Lord for the moisture.
It's good to know you again rain slicker.
The dirt is gonna be good, all soft and deep.
A new horse stands out in the stall. She's kind of pretty, how she's all dark and shiny.
Puddles are forming at the feet of the horses.
Water is still escaping from the arms of the clouds.
I love it <3

Just Do It

Stay stronger than what hurt you and don't ever be afraid of the dust in your rearview.
Learn to protect yourself. Your heart and your body.
Always carry a knife.
Listen to your music too loud and don't turn it down at the stop lights.
Better yet, go somewhere that doesn't even have stop lights.
Don't be afraid of kisses.
Remember that everyone has a past. Just like you do.
That's the beauty of it all, we've all done something we wish we hadn't.
But it is better to regret doing something than to regret doing nothing at all.
I write more to tell myself something than to tell you.
I'm not preaching.
Pain is something that can be overcome, it's not permanent.
Stop being worried that you're going to look back someday and wish you had done something.
Just do it.
And when they ask why, say "Nike said so."

~G 

A Bridle Horse Sun and A Buckin Horse Moon

A Buckin Horse Moon

Under a buckin horse moon somewhere laid a bronc stomper with dust on starched jeans and long fringed rodeo chaps.

Somewhere lying still beneath the same moon was a cowboy girl with dust on starched jeans and long fringed armitas.

The cowboy bounced from town to town running the rodeo trail.

He'd ride one here and there, get pitched off one only every once in a while.

Rodeo season and branding time came around alike, so while he was out covering rank ones, she was throwing lines in the smoke of a branding fire.

A bridle horse sun burned hot as summer rolled into view.

Broncs bucked hard beneath the bright lights for the cowboy, and cowhorses moved like silk beneath the cowboygirl.

After long, hot days below a bridle horse sun, along came a buckin horse moon and beneath it, the world seemed to mesh well.

So with all the forces working together like, romance and love began to unfold between the bronc stomper and the cowboy girl.

It went that for a time that the buckin horse moon was the only witness to this love.

Though one day, beneath a Santa Barbara bitted sun, the cowboy girl was seen in the stands twirling the rings on her fingers as the cowboy got down in the chutes.

Soon after, the sun became a witness to it all, though the moon had seen it first.

After a while and a good long talk, so it was, the true love that played out in the spotlight of the bridle horse sun and the bucking horse moon.

And sometimes you can still see them running beneath that glow.

Photo Credit: Kricket Keetch

I wrote this quite a while ago kind of in light of some friends that I really look up to! Found it in a stack of papers today, hope you liked it! :) (leave some feedback in the comments if you like! - we LOVE hearing from you all!!)

Have a great day!! <3 

~Gussie