By: Julia Hogan
What if it were all revealed—
the magnificent structures of gravel
in the rail bed, the cracks in the wooden
ties. When they were knitted together
and why you could not last another moment.
We followed the tracks past here,
past lazy suburban slums, resting in the midst
of kudzu growth and wisteria, poison ivy
and sumac, their leaves a delicate
red. Where you found yourself wishing
for the cheap immortality found in graffiti,
your name scrawled in fake
hieroglyphics, not even your name.
A symbol. Why is the thought of running
your words across walls so alluring?
What if we could wander past train stations
and empty warehouses, gathering quartz
spray-painted blue and pieces of glass, residual
implications of another walker. A forgetful
drunk, an angry schoolteacher. Someone
who likes to think, who enjoys the effect
of rusted metal against the thin ligaments of vines.
Why did you choose railroad tracks, and why
do I try so hard to understand them?
You walk ahead of me, one motion gathering
into the next. What it would take to pull
you back and hold you still against me?
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Bio: I am a seventeen year old student at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. I like running, reading, and writing. I like to write poetry, creative nonfiction, and short fiction. This is my first year at the Governor’s School.
