Find Home

By Ashley Wu

Where is home? I must return.

1. Turn left at the gas station
2. Right past the broken bottles
3. Wait at the stop light
4. Wait some more and appreciate where you’ve been
5. Green. Go
6. U-turn because you miss your youth
7. Follow the 6:30 school bus until the hedges
8. Honk the horn for the thrill of it
9. Unbuckle your armor 
10. Exhale and knock—“It’s open!”—and grin

Process

“Find Home” was born during the Girls Write Now Friday Night Salon: Calling Identity Home with Jasmine Mans. Ms. Mans prompted us to write a list poem of 10 different directions to home. My house and the family within it are my support system, the shoulders I stand on, the arms I fall back in. They are my home.

Considering their impact on my being, “Find Home” is one of the more meaningful poems that I have written. I focused on contrasting my experiences at home to the ones beyond the front door. It was important that I accurately convey both myself and the home that shaped me in “Find Home.”