Home(sick)

Home(sick)

Thomas Swanson

I've always known who I am.

That has never been a problem.

Growing up

  in everywhere and nowhere,

I learned to build myself as my center,

carve an identity to serve as home.

It's not something I can plot to a map,

a conveniently defined X-to-mark-the-spot,

It's the smell of impending snow,

 beneath sunsetting-palms, with your toes in the still warm sand;

It's the grey-blue Monsoon wind,

 shepherding a rain cloud in one window and out the next,

   and stoking the fire of New England Autumn leaves;

It's mountains,

 so high,

   the air runs out,

   and you can finally catch a full breath in their gravity;

And running barefoot through the jungle,

collecting a thousand miles of views to a good pair of boots;

It's going somewhere you don't speak the language, to be better understood;

Home is all the storied things

 that make the puzzle of my past,

So when I find myself

  In a place

     In a time,

Surrounded by pieces that never seem to fit,

It's fine.

Because I have me

And I've always know who I am

It's just

Sometimes these days

I feel like I'm forgetting how to be him