by Abigail Parlier
I Tried To Do A Revision But This Spilled Out Instead
I feel something inside me break
Because home is home
And you’re supposed to love home, right?
Isn’t that the point?
It’s not that I don’t love home
Because I love it, I really do
It’s just that I can’t help but think that I don’t belong.
The familiarity is stifling
And there are handprints all over me
Like invisible bruises that hurt when pressed because
I’m one person here and
One person there and
All those me’s are trying to climb out of my skin and
I can’t contain them so they leave marks
Where they’ve tried to escape.
I get in a rut that I dug myself,
A rut that I made from driving the same roads
Over and over again
Until I can’t make a turn that doesn’t coincide with what has already happened.
Words tumble out of me
Because I can’t keep them in any longer and
I’m writing them as fast as I can think them
Because I’ve never done this before
Because I’ve repressed it for so long
That the realization is
Climbing its way out of the rut and
Climbing its way out of me.
I’m sorry if I don’t make sense but
I picture these roads in my head and
I picture
Myself
Out.