Hanging Upside Down in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee

Emma burden | Fall 2022

I can walk across the balance beam,
My feet grip its bleached wood, my toes arise with splinters in their flesh,
I hold onto a rusted black metal bar, and I loop my feet over my head,
I hang here,
I hang here for a long time,
Until all of the blood in my body reaches my head,
I can see the sky so clearly,
How the clouds are gray, how the sky is that same gray, too,
It’s raining soon, I smell the rain,
But I don’t want to let go.
My home is in the distance,
About thirty feet ahead of the school,
And I remember that the track this bar is on isn’t ours,
But it is mine,
It is mine because I hang here,
And I see the sky, see how gray it is, and I hold back my tears,
What is a childhood without a father?
Is it the longing to stay in the rain just a little longer?

I don’t want to write freely anymore. I’m finished. This is the poem. This is the feeling. This is the feeling of being eight years old. This is the feeling of a homesickness that you do not know.