exile

maybe admitting how desperately i want to go home
that i’ve willingly exiled myself from
for the sake of love, of living, of being me
is the remedy. maybe i just have to say, dad-
i miss the scent of the plum blossoms in late spring
why did you cut the tree down?
i miss the vast sky from our hill, the scraggly tree line
eating the sun
i miss eating the sun. the warm stone the cat laid on.
i know i can never go back but maybe this love
this yearning love made safe by impossibility
is forgiveness? (the word used to make me puke)
(now bile rises up when i think of the forest
it burns and chokes me with longing
more than the smog ever did)
what kind of love is this, the worn hands of people
who would have nothing but poison for me
since the day i touched her waist with intention
what kind of love is this, for the bitter and stubborn earth,
coal and cracked pavements,
idiotic pride born of nothing because how else can you go on
i know them i am them but they
only see an other when they look at me
a stranger passing through