I am from that place of stubborn superstition, worry stones, and clovers.

But I have left those emerald fields,

my own Paradise lost, a nightmare never dreamed,

from too much cream and sugar, and ignorance to spare;

I fail to please the gods of graves and Earl Grey galore.

I am the Age of Tarnished Heritage, which I prefer to call my Radical Renaissance.

Why have tradition for tradition’s sake?

What of sinks so finely layered in skin,

the sins of apple pies and mashed potatoes?

This land is my own—but mere imitation,

like learning to cherish Stovetop Stuffing,

gummy with the undying life of a Barbie doll,

when the real stuff rots in the trash by the curb.

I know best the days I’ve lived (haunting, stagnant, certain)

I know best my senior dog and sister, one quarter score my senior,

and the timeless hours my parents have given

so that I might know privilege after privilege,

not for king from castle, but for heart from home.

I know best the emptiness of bustling high school halls,

yet I know too the soil of the Appalachians,

and the stillness of a library’s solitude at night,

and the slickness of agenda book pages painted in pen.

This land has been built around me, weaved of genes and chance,

            to showcase living people, no more bitter ghosts;

            achieved realities—so long, abandoned hopes!

            and tangible lines of a résumé to deny my own insanity.

I am unraveling.

I am too many things, too much passion, and too much of too many eventually circles around

me until I am completely out of control, out of form, endless words and endless ideas and endless chaos that cannot rest, cannot breathe, cannot stop, never stopping, never never, even as I lay asleep under a quilt horribly dark blue and cold, just like me.

I am reeling myself back in.

            I think of what I love.

            Music fills my head, consumes it.

            And then there are the books. There I am. I am safe.

This land is the one that I myself have constructed,

and for that is has little structure, like the ocean,

the ever-changing labyrinth of pretention and sincerity:

this land is not yet ripe.

I do dream that one day I will come to create something bigger than myself.

I do hope that one day I will come to understand precisely what is bigger than myself,

            bigger than angst and ambiguity,

            better than shadows under eyes,

            kinder than my own standards.

I do lust for a life in which I know my worth for what it truly is,

            what I can make of it, love in it, cherish,

            rather than what others see it to be.

Because, at times, I believe them before myself.

But, at other times, I refuse to give in.

This land is not yet born,

fertile future awaiting its bloom,

and yet—

it is somehow this land

I am from.