(by Emily Petrou)
Outbound
Inbound
In and Out
Home and Away from home.
Its scary, 3 month old shine
And the comfort of repetition
Who to see and what to do
What do you do when in and out are the same
Home is two places
Nothing alike
But effortlessly linked
Like nature’s woven rite of passage
Rays that make eyes twitch in discomfort
Tickle exposed jacketless skin
Overpacked winter clothes in half-emptied luggage
Grannies’ houses to visit and high school friends to reminisce with
A time traveler of sorts
Until you feel a polite raindrop cloud eyeglasses
They have obviously seen enough
Transported
To a storm of newness
Where no one knows you
And everyone seems like a black hole of possibility
You run constantly
After the 381 bus, after
Dreams so big they feel crushed by their own weight
So hostile
there’s nothing more yours than this.
For the first time: it does not fucking matter who you are
because you shape this
one step
one test
one smile
one word at a time
It dawns on you
This realization wraps you close like a blanket of sun
Excuse me while I find comfort in this
My own piece of home.
The home you can never return to
Because no one told me that when you have two homes
None of them seem home enough
A legal alien of solitude.
Until you book another over priced flight
Buy a window into how things used to be
Fill your brain with fuzzy nostalgia
to last you until your next time back
Back where?
Out or in?
Home or … home?
