There is this version of Indiana that keeps me awake at night.
It is the back roads, riddled with dust and surrounded by stalks of corn
and trees, oh the trees, they concave around your car and you feel lost-
the good kind of lost, the kind of adventurous lost that kicks your bones
and floors your body with color.
It is the people, the ones filled with substance and heart
and good, small town intentions large enough to fill a landscape of pine.
Each laugh is sun, each hug is fire.
They are the fields and the sunsets and the branches of each forest tree,
the particles of each green lake and the running feet on smooth soil.
They are everything good about this place.
It is the poetry of the sunset, the cold calm of the sunrise.
It is the bonfire smiles, the times spent sitting around a wooden pit,
laughter reaching into the sky, picking each star from its place.
The view from down here is magic,
it flies through your fingers, weaving out bad thoughts like Peter Pan.
This place, this place that haunts my dreams with memories,
is a collective home made from my best times;
my best sounds, laughs, and adventures.
This place, this version of rivers and roads,
is my favorite part of living.
Sydney Sargis is a student at Columbia College of Chicago majoring in Poetry. Her work can be found in The Writing Conference, Navigating the Maze 2016, Forest for the Trees, and UltraViolet Tribe. She is a previous co-editor for Teenage Wasteland Review, and a 2016 Scholastic Awards writing portfolio winner. Her interests include writing poetry, listening to records, and playing rugby.
thelab-review.com 