East of Westward Avenue the tether snaps, the air line pops loose and there is no sense of motion as I leave my home town. Holding my breath, I live in other places. I buy bread at ethnic bakeries, I discover art and food, the world. Where I've been, puffed cheeks and purple, I am forever the hick, aw shucks, I'm out of place.

North of the Trellis, where we jumped into the creek, the sun barely sets and twilight dilates time in the evening. Never really dark, I could stay awake all night. Salmon crowd the streams, mosquitos crowd the air, and I see but never touch the smells, the harbor, the lives these people live.

South of the hay fields, a city fills every inch of a basin. In the early morning people awaken, their minds trained to ignore the people all around them. Who they choose to greet, who they curse at in traffic, who they work with, connections to keep them sane.

West of Eagle's Hall are mountains, an ocean, then nothing. This is where the sun sets, and where ships go to die. This is where I sit alone, upon crushed mountains, just above the line of the tide. This is where there's no where left to go.

Thousands of miles in every way, from a home town I cannot go back to. I am not welcome within myself.