Home

The feel of dirt in between my toes

as the Nebraska sun warmed my skin

is part of my childhood home —

the smell of ripe tomatoes

as I watched fat earthworms

inch across my palm.

*

Now it’s my favorite cardigan

to ward off the chill of a frozen

November morning

as I savor the first sips of coffee.

*

The freedom of my bike as I pedaled

around my tiny town to spend hours

reading R.L. Stine at our library.

The drive-thru was our summer

hangout. The ice cream tasted better

when it was enjoyed on a summer evening

dripping with humidity.

*

Now it’s the locals who trade idle gossip

as they order burgers at our local diner.

Grizzled old men long in the tooth.

Farmers with years spent working their land.

Exchanging secrets that only small town

insiders care about.

*

The hours spent marching in those white shoes.

I hated those damn shoes, hated the marching

that exposed my lack of rhythm and grace.

The awkward youth of braces,

bad hair days and boys who spread

nasty rumors about me,

labeling me as something I wasn’t.

*

Home is so many things to each of us.

My “home” was a place of anxiety

as a young person.

It was filled with the hurtful gossip of boys

who spread rumors about me being a slut

Around the school.

*

My “home” was a place of not belonging.

My family was those “weird Mormons.”

I had no grace or athletic school in a world

where you were only “somebody” in the minds

of your classmates if you were a cheerleader

or an athlete. I was neither.

*

My skin tone was just dark enough to be different.

My religion one no one understood.

My grandfather was a man I barely knew

from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I could never really see myself reflected in others,

there were no other olive-skinned girls.

*

There are good things—

summers spent in the peace of a garden

filled with the loamy smell of dirt after a thunderstorm.

Stars gracing a night sky unmarred by city lights.

*

But “home” is a complicated place inhabited

by the past and the present.

Our definition of “home sweet home” is a shifting

landscape. What memories do we choose to treasure?

What memories do we push away and

bury under the sands of time?