A Glimpse of Starlight

NJ > upstate NY > IN > northern VA > Deutschland > northern VA > KS > Deutschland > northern VA > …

I don’t know if you can see it,
but my collarbones extend for miles,
wide as the prairie,
basking beneath the blue sky of my heart.
And my eyes, of course, are grey
with the weight of winter clouds upstate.
Stare close enough at my skin and you’ll see
that it’s patterned like cobblestone
from some old and foreign city.
And you know how my hair changes hues
like the shifting light on the Scottish highlands.
My veins twist and tangle
like highways at night, lit with life,
carrying the heartbeat of a city, a nation.
Even if I tried—which I don’t—
I wouldn’t be able to shake this sand from my feet.

Some people call it wanderlust, but really it’s me
trying to find all the pieces of myself I left behind
and weld them back together again. Except,
once you let any piece go, the rest of you
shifts a little to adapt, and you can’t ever
recover the old you. (In the end,
I’ve learned, you don’t really want to.)
So you’re left with oddly shaped holes,
grown-over bald spots, and a motley collection
of scraps and scarves. It’s beautiful and clumsy
and I guess the mess is what you get
when you spend a life in pursuit of home.
It’s the price and prize of a patchwork heart.