Sometimes I close my eyes and I’m seventeen again. Walking in the fields behind my parents house. It was good land. It was green. It felt soft beneath me and I absorbed its warmth for the sake of remembering.

The old man across town bought it all and choked the trees. Used the branches to hold his collar up. I swear I saw the dirt between his teeth when he smiled. Maybe it was just a dream.

Cut through the valley. I’m driving fast and alone again. It’s all ending again. I’m feeling homesick again. Tell me all the words you collect in your mind – how do they make you feel? I plant them on paper and tell them to grow and this is what I come up with:

the sun sets low around here. It’s like a eerie Midwest hue and I savor it. I open my pores to the haze. Remember everyone who ever smiled at me. I’m angry again- life gets meaner. It shows it’s teeth and bites back when you question it’s meaning. I’m slipping and falling and reaching for my old self. She’s there, I’m just giving her space until she decides to come home. She always does. It’s the stillness before the storm. It’s a crunching sound beneath your boots. It’s the bloom that couldn’t harvest and we were left to hold onto something for the sake of caring. We always cared. I still care.

I can’t let go of this place and that’s what haunts me the most. I dig up my ghosts and ask them to keep me company. They always do. Like we never left. Sometimes I close my eyes and I’m seventeen again. AMT