They ask how I stayed away for so long

do you not miss your parents? do you not

get “homesick?” At 8

the tears of the girls around were unfathomable.

That’s what I told the counselors. Why cry,

why cry when you can sit on the front lawn

feel the fireworks and sunset on your skin

I preferred the water of the lake to tears. Even

if the lake was saltier.

I loved Maine. Or maybe it was

an excuse.

To be away from home,

even when the words

of those girls became bitter

Acidic, more than the underripe strawberries we picked

we ate them anyway.

the juice looked like lipstick my parents forbade me from. They always tried

to keep me from growing

It left me with more work later. Maine went from

7 minutes of heaven to

7 weeks of hell. It’s not my fault, my mother

never taught me how to be a girl. Or how to understand the

other ones.

How do I stay far from home for so long? I lie

to myself,

mostly. It’s better than home.

I should learn how to be a person

I am a person. Maybe I wasn’t

Strangely optimistic or grossly

fascinated with girls.

I wasn’t a joke, not

"that girl"

who picked strawberries for you.

Even when I turned 16.

Double the age, same half of that heart.

Maybe in the back of it

somewhere beneath everything I used to protect

I’m 8,

and I still don’t want to go home.