June 27th - Katie

Sometimes, things are easier for my to explain in verse. Most of my journal entries look something like this... this is just what I was feeling on the way to Tennessee, and it explains my feelings towards this trip better than a paragraph of facts ever could.







I cracked an azure eye open from sleep,
because my dreams were in the room.
They whispered vitals that I had abandoned
In a rush at railway stations,
In quiet sadness on windowsills,
Or simply in the crazy hurricane that left me

spinning, evaluating
This new reflection that I now bare.

My dreams woke me, and reminded me of what I wanted.


To cry out in towering rooms where
My voice echoes to
Spark the obsidian in people’s hearts and eyes
I wanted to be the one to drudge up
The battle cry that has settled to the
Bottom
Of
The
River
Not a call to blood-let, but a call to let blood
Run within the veins that have been stonewalled
In sleep and complacency,

To wage and win the war within ourselves instead of drowning it out.

I once thought I would tip the lantern
That set the world on fire.


I didn’t realize I was a candle, needing to race to light the others
Before I exhaled out
In darkness.

I clasped hands with she who was like me and swore to
Never never
I’m terrified of tasting that promise in my mouth
As I walk into
Meaningless
…Simply because it was easier.


I heard this call to something greater,
As I sat with
Bleached out eyes
Cracks in my skin
So tired of fighting the wind could have blown me away

And here I am,

Feeling iron in my fingers again and
Every time I inhale, I feel
Life
Like a stream,
Run over deep scars,
Secrets at the bottom of my rapids,
healing as they burn closed.
I don’t know how the world has changed since I left it…

But the air tastes of peaches here,
The nights are warm,
And my sun-kissed skin has forgotten
The cold kiss of metal.

I’m not exhaling light because I’ve
Found Something.
I’m breathing deep
Because He
Gave me the strength
To Look.