welcome home, you total stranger

coming home

Photo Credit: Steve Harvey from Unsplash

“son, you look like
you haven’t eaten in days.”

yes father, I’ve trained myself
to fast whenever I’m home.

you barely discern their joyous praise
amidst the smothering kisses and embraces
plump, familiar hands, smearing beads of sweat
the arid San Joaquin Valley breeze
providing little comfort as it batters, tosses
your damp t-shirt, sticking and clinging
to your feverish back

now replanted to the spot
you uprooted yourself years ago,
vowing never to return to this land of lost content
and in every mirror you pass, you remember
how you will always be a son to a mother
and father, no
you convinced yourself to convince them
you will return without stooping, or staring
at the thirsty brown front lawns in shame

these are my darklands, dimmed
by the unconquerable hills of this valley

eternally looming
remote
and riddled with ancient disgrace