Every time I leave this place, it gets harder.

I've always thought of myself as someone who is, by nature, transitory. I've never felt any particularly strong attachment to a location. When I think about the future - on those rare occasions that I allow myself to wander down that path which is equally likely to lead to despair and hopelessness as it is to happiness and excitement - my plans are not attached to any particular location. I don't know where I'm going to be in six months, never mind six years. And I am really okay with that.

Despite this, and without intending to do so, I seem to have put down roots out East. This is only problematic because I did so in a situation that is, by its very nature, temporary.

I know this, and yet, every time I leave this place, it gets harder.

Sarah Kay says she writes poetry to work things out. I think this is true for a lot of poets. I certainly know it's true for me. I also like that she talks about coming to the end of a poem and suddenly realizing what it has been about. Turns out this little guy was about working through some of my anxieties about the toll my nocturnal habits and writerly/academic tendencies take or could take on my relationships.

Fluorescent Light

You are in the other room
in the bed that I call
mine
or ours
or yours
for you sleep there more than I do
while I sit here
bathed in fluorescent light
writing

You say it is all right
that when darkness comes
my mind retreats
to places
you cannot go
but I can sense the strain
as I sit here
bathed in fluorescent light
writing

I know the day will come
when you will grow tired of waiting
tired of sleeping
alone
in my bed
and so you will leave
and I will sit here
bathed in fluorescent light
writing

-- Bree Keeler, 2012