there's a little room
with a round door
in the back of my heart
with a view of the ocean
it's here where i find myself
forgiving everyone and everything

the floorboards are worn smooth
from all my returning
i pass through corridors
where conversations
circle like trapped birds

but here, in this back room
there is only morning light
on bare wood, and a single chair
where i sit and watch waves
erase themselves over and over

sometimes i stay until sunset
when the water turns to copper
i know i'll leave again
dissolving into the sweet
clutter of being human,
my heart a crowded kitchen

but the door stays there
round like a full moon
waiting, and the waves
keep writing their one word
over and over: return

This morning I found myself
sorting paperclips by size—
the way my mother taught me
in motel rooms across southern America,
organizing what little certainty
we could hold in our hands.

I’m on my own now, and I still wake
some nights with that familiar itch,
with this restlessness that whispers:
nothing here is permanent, child.
Not the dust on windowsills,
not the coffee stain on carpet,
not even this gravity
that holds us to one place.

I've spent years
trying to unpack this blessing:
how each goodbye taught me
to find home in the strangest things—
in the comfort of all my belongings
jammed haphazardly in my car,
in the methodical way I label
everything I own, as if naming
things would make them stay.

I handle each object
like a rosary bead, each dish
and book a meditation on what
we carry, what carries us.

Some collect seashells
or pressed flowers. I collect
empty spaces, fill them briefly
with my particular silence,
then leave them blessed
with a swelling, lingering
air of sentimentality.

driving an old car in need of repairs
you feel every oddity
from the creaky, heavy door and
the every-so-often squeaky brakes,
the manual roll-down windows

sometimes you gotta hit the dash
to get your scratched CD playing,
old cars have warm static hums and
headlights glowing in amber
the sweet smell of carpeted seats baked in sun

when flirting with the future,
i drove a new car and it felt
as sterile as a spaceship -
you're unaware of its machinery that
makes it just like every other car.

Every decision I make is pushed by the ghost of my younger self and pulled by the blurry image of my future.