The Woman I Return To

And a Home I am Still Becoming

Selfie by author

I’ve focused too long

on making homes inside other people

while shrinking myself.

Now, beneath the California warmth,

I’m beginning fresh once again.

The climate is a blessing;

the bills, a reckoning.

There’s comfort in these walls

but so much I don’t yet know

about the world beyond them.

Photo by author

How strange

to feel at home

and lost

all at once.

I’m still learning my surroundings

as I’m still learning myself.

I’m finding that freedom can feel like grief,

that a dream can arrive

with its own weight to carry.

But still, something in me opens

when the afternoon light

spills across the floor.