‘Y2’, a poem by Kassitty Lee
I know I’m back when I can feel the steel of dread,
a blade of excitement, driven into my lungs;
stopping my heart like my grandfather’s sotalol,
and making it race like a teen crush once did;
it feels too real and or not at all, and I don’t feel real,
even with the ice of the northern air picking at my skin;
the withering leaves like my memories of the summer,
a green, turned autumn copper, tainted like my muddy boots;
walking campus paths I know too well in the scraping cold,
my knees and bones creaking like the trees and my floorboards;
passing faces that look like family and strangers blended,
like my mind was playing trickster games and I finally lost it;
re-living in an unfamiliar house that I thought I’d made peace with,
re-making acquaintances I think I’ve poured cups of my heart to;
a permanent flush digging a 10-story labyrinth through my brain,
an incessant fever begging on bruised knees for me to go home;
as if I don’t wake up feeling like I want to call this city home,
only to let the freedom turn paranoid over the top of my head;
when the steel of dread, blade of excitement cuts into my eyes,
and this second year only as sure as a first home-new-coming.