Revisiting Texas – Emily Zell

Swimming through the muggy air

Shoes scraping concrete

Cold brew taste on my tongue

Stacked, rollercoaster highways

“I wonder if it will feel like driving home”

Words soaked in fear from my mother’s tongue

What is home but memory?

Is home what fills you with nostalgia?

Or is nostalgia grief of a simpler past?

My fingertips trace the state line

Of my silver, Texas-shaped earrings

Pinning a state to my earlobes

Trying on a home

Running my fingers through my hair

Forgotten frizziness of humidity

Now I remember why I curled my hair so often

Why straightened hair never stayed

My eyes brighten as we drive

To the house that held my summer

And so many memories, tears, and laughter.

Loneliness lived there, but so did love

So did honesty, so did belonging

I lived there too.

Some form of me I may never meet again

Emily Zell is a junior studying English Language Arts Education at the University of Missouri. She loves to read and write, and she is thankful for poetry and the avenue to trace feelings [we] struggle to say.