Yes. That’s what happens when I go home, I get triggered.

I think everyone can relate — especially if you’re an empath or highly sensitive. “Home” is like walking into the middle of a landmine. No bueno.

I knew when I planned this trip it was going to be a test. A test of how well I can remember who I am.

Before going I had more than one dream of floating on top of Utah lake, one of the main landmarks of Utah county. Beautiful to behold from a distance, but a cesspool of mercury laden fish and dead bodies — literally.

At the boat dock, warning signs assault any lingering serenity, advising would-be fishers not to eat more than a half a pound of fish from the lake in a YEAR.

Delish.

In my dreams, Utah lake is like the consciousness of the State — sparkling from the outside, full of poison within. And I know I come from here. It is apart of me.

A hard dream to swallow.

I must make friends with this place. Love it, like the shadowy places inside me– for they know not what they do.

Sometimes it works. Glorious moments occur where I shift into a new reality, and all is well. Utah is the home I always wanted — welcoming me with her majestic mountains. Smiling on me with her glorious sun.

But bliss is short lived and I wake to see the inversion settling in, filling my lungs with death.

Maybe it’s meant to always be a reminder of the contrast I come from — the stark memories of the life I don’t prefer, so I can go off into the horizon with renewed desire to create something new.

For some reason this trip home was the hardest one so far, and yet, the most freeing.

This poem emerged as an after thought. I highly recommend creating from melancholy — it leaves quite a ghostly whisper:

Home

At home her tall steeples frown down on me 
as I reach for the sky where her finger points.
Her mountains shield fears
behind walls of trapped tears,
her air turns my lungs black.