I think it’s colder in my hometown.
Everything tastes too nostalgic,
all leading to an ache in my chest
that’s too thick to breathe through.
Everything here was set long ago.
Every yard holds the bones
of some long dead family dog
that was loved till it got too tired.
I can’t stand to stare out in the woods,
a hundred shades of gray,
and the remains of a burnt house.
It’s all too familiar, all too common.
This town is too loving
in its tough love attitude,
The restless generation has fallen motionless
in our sleeping disorders,
our shaking shoulders,
our bursting hearts, heart deep tiredness.
*
Matches
We’re all wasting time here,
we’re all wasted here,
bored and cold, throwing matches off cliffs,
watching them flicker out into oblivion
like silently passing stars.
I stand bundled in a knitted hat
and my grandfather’s old work jacket,
worn-in to fashion, rubber toed mid-tops
pressed against the metal guard rail,
tip-toed, staring into the basin of fog
as orange tipped specs disappear
into the December gray, swallowed by the shroud.
They sputter out quickly,
the threat of wildfires choked out
long before the burnt-out husk catches on a tree
like new attitudes and old hopes,
the sun in October,
swallowed by the mountains.
Adi Hockenberry is a Harlan, Kentucky native and a Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts creative writing alumnus whose focus is writing poetry that connects to the experience of growing up in the mountains of Appalachia. Hockenberry is passionate about theater and its community connections. She is a stage manager for her high school’s drama club and plans to write and direct plays professionally.