home
each drop a little reminder of
summer camp storms
and big Tennessee yards
and happy singing dancing spinning
into memories frozen in time

summer rain feels like
longing
each drop a heart ache, a heart break
an awful nostalgia that pokes and pinches and burns

i want to move like the clouds
swiftly, with angry tears
leaving pieces of me behind to be evaporated by a warm sun

each little drop is a piece of who I am
each little drop is a piece of who I was
each little drop is a piece of
summer rain

deep in the pit of my stomach
sits a small but heavy rock.

like water at the bottom of a broken well,
it sits, and sits, and sits.

but unlike that water, it does not evaporate.
It will not evaporate. It cannot evaporate.

the rock in the pit of my stomach sometimes feels like homesickness.

that’s how I describe it:

an intense longing for comfort, for ease,
but no respite in site.

one year ago
i thought i was at the brink of escape.

the rock would escape the well.
i would escape the rock.

i was foolish.
you cannot not run from rocks
in the pits of stomachs
so engrained into the lining
that they are fully a part of
who you are.

one year ago
i thought i was at the brink of newness, freshness, wholesome beginnings

i was to be born-again
i was to be crying, screaming into a new life
i was to be able to breathe without fluids
drowning my lungs with expectations.

life cannot be born again.
life cannot be restarted.
life cannot be a clean slate.

each atom i have is different from the atoms i was made up of last year
but they've seen all the same ****.

there is no escaping
there is only moving forward.

i ask my best friend for everything
because she knows best
and i know nothing.

i asked her if you could be in love with two people at one time
and she said:
yes.

but

i don't know how to stop loving him even though i know i should.

i don't know how to stop loving him because i don't know which one i am supposed to stop loving.

i want to find something bigger than me
to swallow me up whole.

consume me.
let me fill you up to the brim
with thoughts, light, and laughter.

and you can
keep me
warm,
keep me,
safe
keep me,
forever.

i want to find something bigger than me
to swallow me up whole
so that I never have to feel
lost again.

i've reverted back to the days when
i held a permanent position
in between the arms of an
ugly, paisley patterned easy chair.

i played a game of hide and seek--
hiding from feelings, sought only by others
to prove that i had some semblance of humanity
lurking behind my blank eyes.

those days were dark, angry
as they ate me up, gathering every drop
of my existence like a sponge

fast forward: i'm far away and
mom says the chair is gone.
what should have felt like anguish
feels like nothing.

all the feelings are in the chair
like coins hidden in the couch cushions,
gone before we recognized their existence.

i've reverted back to the days when
i held a permanent position
in between the arms of an
ugly, paisley patterned easy chair,

but now the chair is gone
and i am left to soak up the feelings.

insatiable:
i feel empty.
there isn't enough to fill the void
that has hunkered down in my stomach.

grabbing at air, i wonder if anything will ever feel
like enough.

it is the cycle.
everything is
a cycle.

i'm starting to believe that nothing ever changes
and no one ever changes
and i don't change

the only thing that changes is the number on the calendar
and the temperature outside and the faces that come and go.
but the numbers in my head that add up to equal
the sum of my misguided thoughts
don't change

each and every time
i wonder if it's worth it.

the battles will bend and break me
the battles will tear me down
and the cycle always wins the war.

the cycle says that this is the year
that i, once again, contemplate the end

the cycle says that i am too cowardly
and that it isn't time

not yet.

someday the cycle will say
today is the day:
let go
and you'll be free.