What the Salt Flats Remember

The salt flats hold what the sea refused — white residue of an ancient thirst, the sky pressed flat against its own reflection until neither knows which one is real.

A crow crosses the distance like a stitch pulled too tight. Somewhere behind us, the mountains have stopped pretending they were ever young.

I walked out far enough that the rental car became a rumor, a rust-colored doubt dissolving at the edge of what I thought I understood about departure.

Here the light does not illuminate — it accumulates. It settles like sediment over every hour that chose this place to finally stop moving.

I left no footprints. The crust closed behind each step the way water does, the way forgetting does — not erasing, but returning to its original silence.