Walk Together, Rock Together :: published in Misfit Magazine

Published in the Spring 2016 issue of Misfit Magazine.

Listen :: 7 Seconds :: Walk Together, Rock Together

Walk Together, Rock Together
 Hundreds of kids and bands 
 pack into Indy Fire Hall. 
 Equipment, backpacks, and bodies 
 sprawl on the dirty linoleum. 
 Merch tables line the walls –
 records, pins, patches, T-shirts, zines for sale.
 Students for a Free Tibet, Food not Bombs, PETA
 literature handed
 to everyone passing. 
 Flyers for upcoming shows lay 
 scattered on the floor.

Music thumps in bursts 
 for twelve hours each day of the fest.
 Hot Water Music, Converge, You and I, Ink and Dagger scream 
 through sets.
 Energy surges
 between band and crowd,
 crowd and band.
 The pit pulsates:
 kids in sweat saturated T-shirts mosh
 and flail their X-ed up fists in the air:
 climb on stage: drop 
 from rafters.
 Girls in tank tops
 sway with the crowd
 bodies colliding : unrestrained.

The hall empties out each night;
 the floor covered in dirty prints of Converse,
 torn and trampled flyers,
 lost hoodies and T-shirts.

Bands break down and load 
 their equipment
 and the parking lot fills with kids,
 relieved to be in the fresh air.
 Music blasts from cars and vans,
 skateboards crunch pebbles before they pop
 ollies over the stack of six decks.

Voices and noise
 blend in the air, 
 everyone stretches the night out,
 just a little bit longer.