I have been working on this poem for a while. It wasn’t until this prompt came out today that I felt the need or rather the want to share. Saying goodbye is never easy and I hope that I will get to say goodbye soon and take the leap of faith on other shores.
Prompt
Leaving, and Longing
The key turns one last time,
a final clicking sound,
that echoes in the hall.
I leave the porch light on,
for the next hopeful person.
A silent signal that outlives my despair.
I pack the books I earned,
the ones I read, the ones I wrote,
the ones I treasured, the ones I saved.
Their weight a thesis on a life of thought,
A useless currency, like words unsaid,
For which no fair exchange
can now be bought.
I leave the dying flowers on the lawn,
the waterless plastic of fake grass
the worn and rutted street, full of holes.
The argument that hollows out the dawn,
The heavy air, filled with deep regret.
I leave the bodies governed by old decrepit men,
The pavement’s grime, the unsafe city, the crime,
gilded names on towers that touch
the hanging tree…freedom
that’s a promise made in vain.
And still, a sadness
settles in my chest,
A homesick ache
for what I’m leaving now.
For all the ways this land
has put to test the very hope
I’m trying to redeem.
It is my country,
with its broken bones,
Its devouring heart
its harsh familiar tongue.
The leaving hurts.
Of all the reasons
leaving keeps me young.
The plane lifts up, tilts toward the sea,
Towards a place that only lives in maps,
a future that is waiting to be free
From all these well-worn remembered traps.
I know new troubles wait
upon that far new shore.
New languages of loss
I’ll have yet to learn.
But on that ground,
I will not need to store
my life in hours,
waiting despondently
for my turn.
Perhaps, there,
when the foreign sun is high,
I’ll draw a breath
that isn’t just for fight,
watch a simple, unambitious sky,
feel what it might mean
to live, not just survive.
To trade the constant
scramble to be brave
For just the quiet
living of my days,
And find, in what the strange
new landscapes have,
A self not shaped by
survival’s weary ways.
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Leaving is never easy, even when you are willingly doing so and even when the place awaiting you is new and exciting. Relinquishing a life built, a place loved is painful. I can only imagine that, when the departure has not date of return and it's filled with uncertainty in that regards, the longing is even more piercing. Beautiful poem.
What a poem Dorie.
Stunning, a heart-wrenching ache, but such a balanced yet sad piece. There's no bitterness or anger, just sadness.
It does really feel like this has come from a deep place.
Thank you for sharing 💛