Homecoming

In the dark early morning above a city

"This is your captain speaking,

we are preparing for landing."

I was very young then,

and I had been harboring

a bitterness upon returning.

Really, because

nobody was there waiting.

It felt like a womb that was empty.

Everyone I'd ever known,

ripped away from me.

Below me in the cold night,

the casino lights

were pretty and green.

Upon touchdown, I remember

I started crying.

Because, despite what it really was,

it was my weird old town.

Whose streets I had walked endlessly.

In every gray alley,

and hilltop faraway

where the sage was blooming.

In a river inlet

where the grass is growing.

On Saturday at 3am,

where someone is yelling

in excitement or anger,

where the dawn is breaking.

In that quiet familiarity

my city taught me

here still two decades away,

intangibly

what my home means to me.