Badwater

I could taste the salt upon my lips as if surrounded by the ocean. My
boyfriend walked ahead of me, photographing every moment. I took photographs
myself, but what I was taking in was something I could never photograph.
My brain is a bustling city, and every now and then, my neurons need to take
a step outside for some fresh air and quiet. The minute my foot landed on the soft,
moon-like terrain of Badwater Basin, the bustling city in my head went quiet.
I took in the vast expanse of white terrain. And my brain took in the loudest
sound it ever heard.
I turned to my boyfriend and asked, “Hey, do you hear that?”
He stopped, listened and asked, “What is it?”
“Nothing.”

 

Maria Perry was inspired to start writing in high school when her high school English teacher said she was really good at writing short stories and asked if she considered being a writer. She enjoyed reading a lot of books. She majored in English/Creative Writing and Communications/Mass Comm at Cal State University, San Bernardino. She wrote for the Coyote Chronicle, her school newspaper and eventually became their copy editor. Eventually, she applied to The Record Gazette, where she wrote as a freelancer from 2015 to 2019. During that time, she got two poems published in Anti-Trump Zines.