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    Almost Home: Poems
    Almost Home: Poems
    Almost Home: Poems
    Ebook206 pages1 hour

    Almost Home: Poems

    By Madisen Kuhn and Orion Carloto

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the Instagram poet and author of the exquisite Please Don’t Go Before I Get Better comes a gorgeous poetry and prose collection that explores the meaning of “home” and the profound discovery of finding it within oneself—perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace.

    In this stunning third collection from Madisen Kuhn, Madisen eloquently analyzes some of life’s universal themes within the framework of a house. Whether it’s the garden, the bedroom, or the front porch, Madisen takes you into her own “home,” sharing some of the most intimate parts of her life so that you might also, someday, feel free to share some of yours.

    Filled with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations from Melody Hansen, this boldly intimate, preternaturally wise, and emotionally candid collection encourages you to consider what home means to you—whether it’s in the lush, green-lawned suburbs or a city apartment—and, more importantly, explores how you can find it even when home feels like it’s on the far-off horizon.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateOct 1, 2019
    ISBN9781982121266
    Almost Home: Poems
    Author

    Madisen Kuhn

    Madisen Kuhn is a writer living in Charlottesville, Virginia. She likes to explore topics of identity, belonging, sexuality, and mental illness in her work. In 2015, she self-published Eighteen Years, a collection of over 200 poems. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Studio and Digital Arts.

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      Book preview

      Almost Home - Madisen Kuhn

      homeless

      i raised myself to be someone who has no roots at all. i did it to myself by never staying put, always jumping from place to place instead of embracing one home. i have no home at all. i am always wandering, always temporary, never knowing how long each stay will last. and i cannot grow as quickly as others when i am pruned. others who have steady sunlight and familiar soil. they have real friends, and a permanent family, and the coffee shop down the street that is always there. i have train tickets, and parking tickets, and parents who take turns making me cry, and google maps to help me navigate short-term return address cities. instead of feeling free, as wandering implies, i feel so incredibly trapped—locked out of a safe space that everyone else spent their adolescence building. mine was built on highways between broken homes. i look at the photos they share and wish someone had taught me how to swim with the tide. i began drifting before i knew what it meant.

      repressed

      if you are

      like me

      when you

      were young

      you were

      taught that

      tongues

      should sleep

      safely inside

      filtered mouths

      not dressed

      in honesty

      or pleasure

      but rather

      in delusion

      in carefully

      memorized

      scripts

      when

      your bones

      grow around

      these limits

      they break

      a little

      with every

      breath

      they form

      in twisted

      patterns

      through

      knotted

      childhoods

      into

      corrupt

      adulthoods

      where

      we must learn

      what it

      means to

      unravel it all

      i am tired

      my blood feels thin

      within my veins

      i’ve never been inside a home

      that smells like freshly baked muffins

      and acceptance and truth

      my walls have always

      been made up of bone and grit

      the paint peeling from

      overhearing so many lies

      i’m not sure the voices even notice

      the tone of carelessness

      that lines their mouths

      or that i have spent years trying

      to unlearn their brokenness

      the toxins that leave

      a waxy film over

      everything

      i am

      subjective

      i do not feel compassion

      for the man who made me

      learn what it means to survive

      to come out the other side

      with wounds that hide under

      repressed skin, only to reveal themselves

      as silence or black ice caught in

      a flash of remembering

      i do not wonder what made him this way

      think, did his mother hug him enough

      when i hear his voice echoing

      in nightmares where i cannot scream

      and my legs feel like lead

      burdened by the weight of all this baggage

      a torn-up suitcase

      filled with bloodred bricks—

      it does not meet the carry-on weight limit

      and i cannot unpack it

      where do i go from here

      there are ladybugs crawling all over my mother’s house

      or maybe it’s my stepfather’s house

      or my brother and sister’s house

      it’s someone’s house, it’s not mine

      the ladybugs are scaling the windowpanes

      polka-dotted carcasses line the kitchen floor

      the faucet is dripping

      it has been for years

      you dream of growing up in a house with

      a fireplace in the living room

      you forget that you might live there

      with people who won’t fix it

      instead, they grow cold

      they throw cardboard boxes over the side of the front porch

      and pungent trash bags into a rusting and dented trunk

      the basement is unfinished, filled with dead mice

      and pieces of my childhood that are easy to forget

      the washer trembles when it’s off balance

      it won’t stop till you rearrange the tangled sheets

      there’s a yard full of untrodden grass

      it looks so large and whole from the outside

      but there are holes in the walls

      the size of doorknobs and fists

      i would really like to go home

      crying through space and time

      i feel close to myself

      when i cry

      when my shoulders shake

      it feels familiar

      and safe

      i am nineteen again

      crying on the train

      going home after

      kissing a boy who

      couldn’t make me feel

      safe

      i am sixteen again

      crying in my aunt’s basement

      thinking that out of all the

      temporary beds i’ve slept in

      this one is the softest

      i am twelve again

      crying with

      the door closed

      listening to the familiar bellows

      of a broken home

      when i cry

      i am the same person

      i have always been

      it is like i am saying to myself

      i’m still here

      i’m still here.

      blooming in concrete

      the bits of apple

      between my crooked bottom teeth

      remind me of all the homes i’ve lived in

      or almost lived in

      that have left a sweet but spoiled taste

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