2000 [ Time / Love | Exile ]

[40]

A year — a new millennium, too —
with so many possibilities is finally here,
with new stories, beginnings & endings.
The dreaded “Y2K” didn’t pan out; still,
what are the uses of fear, if not to exile us
from our birthright/s?

[100]

My first marriage, with its anger & silences
punctuated by slamming doors, fails earlier
but finally ends this year. I’m free & I’m not.

I leave Hawai‛i a second time,
likely for good. I’ve finally broken free
into permanent exile from my home island/s.

In the summer I leave for Washington State,
for the Pacific Northwest, for what will become
my new home. My new home, that is, until
I realize that exile follows / finds me there, too.

I’m free & I’m not. I begin to interrogate
so many failed relationships, my exile
from Hawai‛i, my exile from love.

~*~

Andrew Shattuck McBride
NaPoWriMo ~ 2013 | My Day 5
April 9, 2013

[I’m trying to catch up!]