View high resolution
We will not destroy you, no we will not destroy you.
When I moved to the west, we came with a lot of baggage. We fit everything we owned into my four door Cavalier, but the unseen, intangible baggage we brought was immense. I could feel it weighing us down on the east coast, the wrongs I had committed he couldn’t forget. But as we ascended into the mountains, dropped further and further out of the deserts and wastelands into that lush green strip of land between the Cascades and the ocean, I could feel it tugging at the very base of my spine, at the bottom of my stomach, the back of my chest. We were headed in the right direction. And though that beautiful land would see the end of us, its rich, bountiful soil would pull the sorrow right out of the soles of my bare feet. The damp, cool piney Evergreen branches would kiss my cheeks with drops of pure water, holier than any a Cardinal could bless. This place would strip me down to nothing but mud and freckles and cool mountain air, then rebuild me, whole (like I’d never been). And in the end, I would leave it, packing everything I owned back into that four door cavalier, this time alone. But as I drove back over the mountains, across the deserts and wastelands and cornfields, I cried from sorrow, but also from excitement. I was whole, and light, and free, on my way from the east I’d carried impossibly heavy baggage, but on my way from the west, I carried gifts.
