Breah Mulvehill
Poetry
The Badlands: 244,000 acres of dramatic layered rock formations, with steep canyons and towering spires. The memories of myself running around the spires in eighth grade, trying not to twist my ankle. Every restaurant with seasoned deep-fried beef steak or some kind of red meat, in bite-sized pieces, called chislic, which has to be medium rare and is best paired with soda crackers and, of course, ranch. Constant roars of B-1 bombers training at the Air Force base near Rapid City. At school, the teachers quit talking mid-sentence until the bombers are out of tune.
Hold on, let me take you back. Do you remember those gray toy airplanes with the sharp-edged wings and a long pointy nose? That’s exactly what a B-1 bomber looks like, but louder, like the sound of thunder during a summer rainstorm. South Dakota is the “Meth We’re On It” campaign from Governor Kristi Noem, and the Sturgis Rally every August. Sturgis is a town of 7,000 people, yet each year 700,000 come here to the world’s largest motorcycle rally.
South Dakota has two sides. The west is beautiful, known for the Black Hills, while the east is known for corn. We even have our own Corn Palace. Every fall, white girls on the western side drive to Spearfish Canyon to see the leaves changing colors and take Instagram photos. I am one of those girls. There, Wall Drug is a roadside attraction, good for a meal and shopping but mostly to get free water. In Deadwood, you can gamble. In Keystone, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt are carved into a rock.
South Dakota is home, Don and Deanne, a brown five-bedroom house I’ve lived in my entire life, my mom cooking steak and potatoes and chicken chili soup. It’s where my siblings and I played basketball and had each other instead of the neighborhood kids, sneaking onto the golf course after it closed to play a few quick holes before the sun set over the Black Hills.
Breah Mulvehill graduated in fall 2023 with a degree in business administration. She is from Rapid City, South Dakota, where Catron Boulevard is named after her grandfather.
The Rocky Mountain Review 