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.