"slipshod thoughts on a magnetized 'home'" by Willa Bywater (Waldo County Winner)
sea turtles use magnetic fields to find their way
back to the beach where they were born.
i used to get lost just trying to walk home from the co-op.
they say you can't get lost in the place you grew up, where the streets are like your bloodstream.
i grew up in chicago, just not all the way,
not enough. swallowed lake michigan water,
cut my foot in the wading pool.
i know portland maine is not a big city but
it’s the biggest one i've really known.
broken compass.
needle pointing midwest,
north marked new york city, ellis island,
and here i stand in maine.
polarity flips
i want to stay on the coast.
the midwest is misaligned with the magnetized iron in my blood. you can't go home again.
the city i was born in burned in 1871.
the town i was raised in burned in 1865.
it’s the final step of the hero's journey:
come back home.
we miss you, weary wanderer, return to your beginning. he returns but is changed.
his home is changed.
nothing is changed.
fall out boy wails: but there's a light on in chicago and i know
(i know)
i should be home.
look for the light.
there's a candle in the window of a sailor's wife. there's a candle kicked over by a cow.
there's a lighthouse.
come home, weary wanderer.
sea turtles use magnetic fields to find their way
back to the beach where they were born.
Willa Bywater, (any pronouns) is seventeen years old and a senior at Belfast Area High School. Though her passion for maple syrup and snow may lead you to believe she's always lived in Belfast, Willa was actually born in Chicago. His family moved to Belfast when he was five years old, but the memory of Chicago still haunts Willa's dreams. This is what led them to write “slipshod thoughts on a magnetized ‘home,’” and also a lot of other stuff that they only realized afterwards was secretly about the question, "Where are you from?" Aside from that question, Willa also spends much of xer time writing, thinking, and talking about history, tarot cards, blood, ghosts, Judaism, gender, Internet dialects, cat genetics, and wolves. Xe is not waterproof.