I don’t care what nobody says — that billboard’s mine.
Not legally, not officially, not in some city zoning records or digital advertising lease, but in the only way that matters: spiritually. Emotionally. Universally. That billboard and me? We got history.
It sits off Highway 12, just past the bend where the pine trees start to thin out and the wind always smells like wildflowers and motor oil. It’s big, rusty, peeling at the edges, but it’s got character — real soul. Used to advertise some tooth-whitening strips back in 2017. Then a divorce lawyer. Then, for the longest time, nothing but faded colors and a message half-swallowed by time.
That’s when I claimed it.
First time I noticed it — really noticed it — I was 19, heartbroken, broke-broke, and out there on my uncle’s beat-up Kawasaki trying to ride my pain into oblivion. I pulled off to the side of the road, parked in the gravel, and sat on the hood of an abandoned sedan someone had clearly forgotten or given up on. The billboard towered above me, a big silent witness to whatever storm was tearing through my chest.
Didn’t even have a full message anymore. Just “-u deserve mo-” in cracked paint and half-torn vinyl. It was supposed to say “You deserve more.” I knew that. But somehow, the fact that it didn’t — that it had been weathered, hurt, and still stood there — made me feel like maybe I could, too.
From then on, it became my spot.
Every breakup, every win, every loss, every damn existential spiral, I’d drive out to that billboard and just… sit. Smoke sometimes. Scream other times. Write bad poetry on the back of receipts. Play my music loud enough to scare the birds. There was something about that place that made me feel seen — not judged, not fixed, just seen.
My friends started calling it my “therapy tower.” They joked I’d end up putting my face on it someday, grinning like a country singer promoting an album nobody asked for. But I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to commercialize it. I just wanted it to exist. Unbothered. Like me.
Then came the day they tried to take it.
Some new real estate company bought the land behind it, and before I knew it, there was scaffolding, neon vests, and talk of LED screens and modern ad rotations. I rolled up one afternoon and saw the crew laying out plans to digitize it — strip the soul out of it, basically. I lost it. Genuinely almost cried. I know that sounds dramatic, but when you’ve poured pieces of yourself into a place — when it’s carried parts of you you couldn’t carry yourself — watching someone try to “upgrade” it feels like erasure.
So what did I do?
I made a sign.
White paint on black wood: “SHE’S MINE.”
I climbed halfway up the ladder, zip-tied that sucker to the rusted railing, and dared anybody to touch her. I must’ve looked ridiculous. Helmet on. Paint on my jeans. Holding a coffee cup like it was holy water. But something about that act — small, defiant, pointless — gave me a high I hadn’t felt in years.
I became the guy with the billboard.
Locals started noticing. Someone tagged the base with “RESPECT THE SIGN.” Another person painted flowers on the lower pole. Someone even left a little ceramic angel at the foot of it one night, and I swear I almost hugged it. My billboard became something more — a community oddity, a landmark, a symbol of weird small-town resistance against soulless corporate glow.
She’s still there, by the way. Still crooked. Still raw.
New companies have tried to claim her, but nobody’s gotten past the graffiti and the general bad vibes of trying to destroy something that’s clearly loved. My sign’s faded, but still hanging — “SHE’S MINE” in ghostly letters that shimmer just right in the early morning light.
People ask me sometimes why I care so much. Why I’m so attached to a slab of wood and metal. But it ain’t about the structure.
It’s about everything she’s held for me.
That billboard knows my worst thoughts. She’s seen me dance alone with headphones on. She’s witnessed my one-sided conversations with the stars. She doesn’t judge. She doesn’t move. She just holds space — and sometimes, that’s all someone needs.
Maybe one day, someone else’ll claim her. Maybe I’ll move on. Maybe she’ll fall in a storm or burn in a fire or finally give in to rust and time. But until then, she’s mine.
Me n ma billboarrrrrd — we go way back.
And I don’t need her to be shiny. I just need her to be there.
Like she always has.
