I lose my heart to a Texan guy who says he has no name but calls me Sweetheart and Pepper and he holds my hand and takes me to the desert to look at the stars and he laughs louder than anyone I have ever known and he was born in Dallas and is big like a bear and his eyes are brown, his eyes are full of shit, this is what his father said, but to me they are like some kind of deep river you can’t be sure of getting to the bottom of and he wears a silver bracelet on his left wrist and a silver and turquoise ring on one finger and this makes me blue for a guy I once knew but all the time I am around the Texan guy I am together happy and sad but there’s never going to be a together with this Texan even though for a while we are close as we can be in this big lost country which is all dust and unknown plants with strange habits like his own.
When I leave, forever leave, I am lost and found and lost again but I do not forget the places of dust, stars and strange plants or the Texan who still creeps into my heart and will always be trouble to any woman coming his way.
Bronwen Griffiths writes longform and shortform fiction. Her latest novel, Longshore Drift, was published in March 2026, and her flash pieces have appeared all over the world. She lives in East Sussex, UK.
'The Texan' was first published by Ellipsis Zine in 2020.
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