Maudie Bryant




Squeezed into that rust-pocked Pinto,
retro cool but close to falling apart. 
Prepubescent, pressed into someone’s lap
amidst the teenage funk of sweat and Metallica,
the foothills trembling with guitar riffs. 
We rattled along under a ruthless sun,
windows down, wind tearing through hair,
laughter whipped into the hot dust of the road.
The air thick with sagebrush and scorched earth,
my throat as dry as the cracked dirt below.

Then, something shifted.
A jolt under denim, an ache I didn’t know
how to name. His hand tightened, holding me
still as the car bucked over gravel cattle guards—
bump after bump after bump—my body
turned to stone, heart beating wild under my skin.
Gramma’s dog-eared romance novels flashed
in my mind, their tattered pages curling
into images of things I barely understood.
I blushed, heat pressed tight between my legs.

I didn’t look him in the eyes again, not then,
and not years later when I saw him
in the drive-thru line, barking at some girl
over cold fries. He had a work truck, a scowl,
the boy from the foothills long gone,
replaced by someone harder, meaner,
no laughter, no music. Just another man
with an impatient fist.

I mourned for the flush of that first rush,
for the heat and dust of those summers,
for what we were—before we knew
what the world would do to us,
before desire became another thing
faded like marks in the sand,
blown away and forgotten.





Maudie Bryant is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her work often navigates themes of human experience, memory, and nature. Maudie’s poetry has appeared in journals such as Anodyne Magazine, Susurrus, and Spellbinder. When not writing, she enjoys creating visual art and occasionally dissociating via video games, where her Minecraft base is far better organized than her real life. Instagram/Facebook: @maudiemichelle Twitter: @maudieverse