I keep hearing that
in order to exist properly
amongst your peers
you need a strong sense of self.
I think that
the stains on my shirt
melancholic playlist in my ears
grumbling tummy
and agitation with self help websites
might be as good as it gets for my early 20's.

and I'm tired of trying to be perfectly healthy all the time.
and I think capacity for constant self awareness is a privilege.

Reverberations are the hardest part.
Navigating something that will inevitably flow through you
as if you have any control.
Think about it.
Someone jumps in the pool you’re in,
you have no choice but to let the waves and molecules
orbit around you.

It is what separation feels like. Jumping into a pool. Waves lapping out until finally they blend in the whole again.

I've lived somewhere over 50 homes by now.

The ones that stick out?

In Portland I rented a micro-studio. My first apartment I signed a lease on by myself. It had no in-unit kitchens: there was a communal kitchen on floor one. Bed came out the wall. best description: trendy, affluent, hipsters who want to live communally in theory, but eat out every day instead. Communal kitchen was empty. No one was ever home. We all went to the food carts across the street, later replaced by a hotel.

in Florida we had a pool (even the poor have pools in Florida) and the neighborhood ice cream truck sold drugs. That’s not important. It was the pool! I lived like a mermaid and it was the same pool I had my first kiss next to.

In Wisconsin we lived above a bead shop that turned into a dress shop that rented out prom dresses to the town. I watched the cozy middle-class flock to the shops beneath me. For being a town of 1,000 we had the coolest apartment since I could spy on the whole town and their frequent trips to the bakery.

In North Carolina we lived in a neighborhood called 'beverly hills' in Asheville - the house was interesting, not very bourgeois as the neighborhood title suggested. I wanted to turn the basement into a gaming center for kids. I spent a few days sweeping the spiders away and saved all of my summer allowance to buy Rock Band. We moved before I had anyone over.

My favorite house will always be my grandmother’s - somewhere in the middle of 20 acres in Eastern Oregon is my own version of an oasis. It is dry land, full of tumbleweeds and prone to wildfires, but something about the smoke stained carpets and 24/7 television noise feels most like home.

Everything I did was viewed through the lens
of some sophisticated world traveler.
You really critiqued me, from how I got on the bus,
your eyes checking my intuition of how to stand while it moved,
seeing how I engaged in conversation with strangers,
scanning the clothes I've curated,
and gladly noting how "little I seemed to care about them",
chalking everything up to "american ignorance",
to scoping my bookshelf for your overrated preferences,
you are prying into my music taste,
my palette,
my body.

Meanwhile,
I get on the bus per usual,
wide stance to balance the stop-and-go motions,
I tell people have a nice day and make small talk about most everything!
especially the weather,
my collection of clothes is a museum themselves,
I care and tend to each piece carefully,
I think American's are happy-go-lucky double edged swords,
My bookshelves,
music taste,
pallet,
and body
are all full of volumes
unreachable by those who try to see me through
their narrow monocular.

California
thank you for my birth  
never did revisit you  
except disneyland

Washington
thanks for being home  
the heart of a mountain stands  
lungs like evergreens  

Oregon
washington's tumor  
your coastlines are far superb  
please stay a secret  

Nevada
my ****** noses  
homeschooling and snowboarding  
miss your tumbleweeds  

Ohio
all I remember  
three legged cat in forest  
hillside four-wheeling  

North Carolina
the blue ridge mountains  
guitar hero and hopscotch  
made up for the snakes  

Florida
fondest memories  
most important, my first kiss  
beach had a nice view  

Wisconsin
how did I survive  
must have been warmth from others  
also my parka  

Texas
aunt's arms welcome me  
summer wraps me in her heat  
stars shine Texas-big

Idaho
chance brought me here first  
mountain peaks stole my whole heart  
now roots grow like sage

In my journal I wrote a little while waiting in the hospital lobby during my grandmother's appointment.
I observed others. Some elderly women looked tired, and a bit irritated with their paperwork tasks. They seem full of pain and impatience.
There was this one woman I noticed - she was raised up in an electric wheelchair, smiling out of squinted eyes with wrinkles like memory foam from decades of laughter.
She reminded me of the transition from summer to autumn.
Those first couple days of crisp weather and that restorative feeling you get and thought you forgot during the peak intensity of the heat.
Her face was full of youth and acceptance.
She knows everything will be alright.
And I find inspiration in her countenance and stop biting my fingernails.