We ride a lot of trains here.
I always get stuck on the side with too much sun.
My freckles are coming back.
I’m so grateful I don’t have words.
Thought I’d lost them.

My feet are so tired they don’t remember rest.
My soles are in the shapes of cobblestones.
I can point out the cities I’ve crossed through
by the grooves from the rocks on my heels.
Bring them home.

A handful of dust from under each bed
I ever dreamt about you in.
I forgot to buy souvenirs,
too distracted,
but there’s enough sand in my suitcase
to make us a mountain.

Forgive the grains in my teeth
when I smile. This was a summer
I relearned my grin
and it would be too cruel to ask me
to stop.

—

This time last year, I was spending six weeks studying German history in Berlin. It is a time I think of often, because even though it was in the wake of some terrible things, it was a time for me to just be truly alone in my head. Only I ended up not thinking of much of anything– I watched a lot of episodes of Big Little Lies and Daredevil, I sprawled around a lot in bed, I read a lot of German classics. My classes took us on a million field trips and made us write a million papers, and I’ll write about those adventures soon, I promise, I just don’t think I’ve processed them quite yet– it’s taken a year, still, but I like that there are some things in my life I’m still allowed to take my time with. I was tired of overthinking everything and everyone, so I just let myself think of nothing.

Then, in the last handful of weeks, I wrote a thousand poems, like they were pouring out of me, a bathtub overflowing, unable to be stoppered. I was anxious about returning to the real world, anxious about seeing certain people in person again, anxious about not having a real excuse not to text back to others. But I’ve since learned that wasn’t a real fear– they were real excuses, it just took me a while to recognize them as reasons, and not excuses. It was a hard lesson in realizing you’ve moved on without noticing until the ground under your feet is not the same pavement as the last time you checked. And so the poems came, to try and make sense of the journey.

I’ve been sick with and recovering from the flu here, so forgive another old poem. This one is a deep favorite of mine, from Ocean Growing.

All my heart.

xx,
Meg.

My debut poetry collection is available on Amazon and Kindle. ❤

Photo taken on a beloved trip to Leipzig.