2013 ELIZABETH GRAEME
AWARD IN POETRY

WINNER

Erin Farrell
CB East High School

Coarse Heels

They say it's impossible to get lost in North America now           Since they've commercialized                         and vandalized                                       with infrastructure and order and rigidity and organization           The natural world - taming everything they decided was wild and proclaiming it savage and     uncivilized and wrong because it wasn't like us, the rugged individualists But they - yes, that same they           That damned they that's always there with their sayings           They say nothing is impossible                         not one gaping abyss of normalcy nor a massive cataclysm of adventure                         nothing But sometimes, that's just all you want to do - get lost           Or maybe it's just me I just want to escape the suburban catacombs in which I'm already buried and die somewhere exotic as someone different           Or maybe it's we - maybe you, too           Maybe it is you and you'll prove them wrong           Hopefully it's you: I still have hope for you, I really do                         that you'll live and not just wait It's all you want to do sometimes           Run           Hole up in some deep dark oblivion and never speak again It's all those meaningless things that are frivolous things and so absolutely thing-y and material that you're running from           And the people who have become things because of their obsession with things Just hop on a train and watch the steam swallow the sky           Cut your ties - your losses Just drive Hide in the back of a rusty red pickup and smell burning light bulbs of old headlights and decaying wood and dirty wrenches and oil and talcum           Thumb a big rig and get lost           Just get lost and never find your way back                         but find a way forward                         shove a door open with a shoeless foot and disregard the past recklessly Oh, just do something reckless, utterly reckless, like run away           Pedal somewhere on that old bike and never turn back                         Have a false identity                         To be a stranger and find another stranger in a strange world                         and just moonlight-dance and sing and be strange                                        just run You want dirt in your hair and under your nails Grime at your wrists and on your feet           The only soap the running stream           The only comb your fingers Feel hunger and need just to feel something even if it's pain           You'll chase nothing but the idea of something to the ends of the earth                         and when you're there you won't fall off but you'll dive off                         and swim into some forbidden celestial chasm                         bare and unafraid of what might be swimming with you and the stars                         submerged in the black and one with it because you let go and ran                         living in a room you made out of the mountainside Because you're you and you ran because you could not because you should because you shouldn't have but you did           You ran because it was what you wanted           You weren't afraid to want and lose and defy and trespass and feel and take risks           You did what you wanted and are free Could you imagine that liberty           Tearing your coarse heels on cracked black pavement and watching the yellow lines skid           beneath you in a wild blur                         wild like you Even though you'll die someday                         but not until you've lived, you restless soul, lived and you were wild But maybe some things really are impossible They're wrong either way           And they're right, too