“Homegrown Sorrow” (2022) By Rachel Sumner
I heard you’re taking off again
Though I don’t know to where or when
I’m still getting used to hearing second hand
How you’ve been, my old friend

And maybe friend’s not the right word
But we aren’t strangers, we’re just hurt
I’m still holding hope that time will smoke you out
From the bitter hold where your heart’s housed

Oh, I don’t know where you’ll be tomorrow
But I hope we find
More yesterdays in time

And when the wheels lift from the ground
Before you clamber through the clouds
Do you scan the shoreline where we used to walk?
Or do you close your eyes when you take off?

I’d see our ghosts on subway lines
See us swaying while the breaks whined
And I’d change my state and city, but I settled for the route
Tell me, do our echoes haunt you when you go out? 

Oh, I don’t know where you’ll be tomorrow 
But I hope we find
More yesterdays in time

You feel your best when things are foreign
I’d bet that when you get to where you’re going
All that homegrown sorrow you and I had raised
Will wilt away in your suitcase

Go and take as many trips as you need
Find or lose yourself overseas
I have tried my best, but never in the least
Ran and found a single moment’s peace

Still, I’ll meet you there
If ever you need me

Some nights I see you in my dreams
Where all those hard words come with ease
You may not be ready, but in dreams you hear me through:
I should have been a better friend to you

Oh, I don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow
But I hope we find
More yesterdays in time