Select Page

I want to go home
Only I can’t find it anymore
I return where I started
And it
It
Changed somehow
The house is there
Some of the people are too…
Although more wrinkly than I remember

so I try to retrace my steps
to see where I mislaid it
to see where I got off track
only those places are
not
what
I
thought
Or remember

I reread the books and chapters that
I used to make a self
Only they are showing me
A new self
And I can’t find the way back
The more I read the further away I move

There are no plane tickets back there
I don’t regret it all
I just miss
Something back there

Like a handbag left on the train

A tugging that I know I forgot

Something
Back
There

A need to rifle through
Old drawers
And maps

Chances are
If I find it
I won’t recognize it
My eyes have been altered
Lasered by loss and time and grief and time
I want to go home
Only I can’t find it

Whatever it is

Back
There

~suelarkinsweems ’10

*for those following hurricane news, we have evacuated inland to Richmond for the weekend. Yes, Matt’s at sea, so I’m in a hotel with four kids and a nervous dog. Awesome.*