Paris Vs. Kansas

 

This is not a love poem.

                               This is not an angry poem.

                                                           This is not an I'm alone poem,

                                      Or a leave me alone poem.

                                                                                                    This isn't even a poem.

This is not a poem because I've spent this last semester feeling uninspired.

This is not a poem because I swore I'd make my journal cooler, and I didn't.

This is not a poem because I've procrastinated way too many blog posts to count.

 

This is not a poem because I'm too scared to write.

I'm too scared to write the words that could quite possibly break my heart.

They could quite possibly kill me, and if I'm being completely honest...        I'm not ready to go yet.

 

 

For a while, Paris started to feel old. So many sights already seen, so many people smiling at the girl who is so desperately trying to fit in.     It took on that musty smell. The one you find in your grandmas basement.

"Oh hey! Look grams! You left Paris down here in this box."

And I know you could never forget about Paris, but everyday I catch my mind taking a flight back  to Kansas...where the Koi fish swim in synchronized circles through my bones and I'm finally breathing my sighs of relief when I reach the top of my favorite oak tree and find the very spot where I crashed my grandparents golf cart.

 

I'm finally writing again,

with my feet in the sand pit and the cicadas singing in my ears.

I'm tempted to dip my toes in the fountain of youth...but only for a moment.

It isn't until the stars subside that I realize I'm already swimming in pond scum.

I've let the wind spin me in circles for far too long because I've always believed that this life had the best intentions for me.

That the tornadoes would always take me where I was supposed to go.

They picked me up, taught me how to do backflips, and then dropped me on my ass

in the middle of nowhere.

"Sorry Dorothy, but you're not in Kansas anymore."

 

 

You're in the adult-hood,

 and jobs, and taxes, and buying your own toilet paper

are punching you in the face.

And you're just now figuring out that tornadoes are bad

and backflips are for kids.

And the wicked witch of the west might actually be your friend,

because she's always been your mom.

and you're starting to feel bad for throwing so many houses on her,

and stealing her ruby red shoes because maybe that's how she felt "young again".

 

And I'll always love Paris and the time that I spent there, the words that I read, the people I met.

 

But I'll forever regret never visiting the Eiffel Tower...because that's something only

 

a tourist would do.

 

xoxo,

Kenzie