Home Sweet Home

Apparently I wrote this in the Fall of 2004, when I took a poetry class in college. I forgot that I had saved my files from school, and I came across this gem. I have tons of files from class assignments, newspaper writing, term papers, etc. I forgot that I had written poems at all. Wow.





Home Sweet Home is Everywhere

Twenty-one years ago, I took my first baby steps
in a small New Jersey town, as my family got ready
to move to South Carolina
and this would be yet another house I would not remember

Eighteen years ago, I never noticed that my family
didn’t look like the locals in Okinawa, Japan.
I assumed that every kid had a Marine father
and lived among different kinds of people.

Fourteen years ago, my best friend and I were girl scouts in North Carolina
singing along to old 1950’s records, and playing pretend after school.
We couldn’t wait to grow up together and I thought we’d live on Sandy Lane forever.

Ten years ago, I was a minority in a tiny town in southwestern Arizona
with a new best friend, sending letters to the one I left behind.
Rainfall was a rare occasion, and snow was unthinkable.

Five years ago, I moved to Maryland after a 4 year stint in Virginia.
Dad retired at the pentagon and we all looked forward
to a home that wouldn’t change addresses for awhile.

One year ago, I was a junior in college.
Mountains and cold weather became part of my daily life,
while the rest of my family had it warmer on flat land hours away.
I occasionally wrote letters to my previous best friends and made new ones at school.
Keeping in touch, as they say in yearbooks, is more difficult than it seems.

Adaptation is something I’ve learned to accept, and I’m trying to adjust all the time.
Home is where the heart is, and in my case, home is everywhere.