Leaving feels like choking on your favorite food.

You think the end game will be worth it,

but getting there is painful, and hard, and feels a little bit like you're dying. 

Because you are. In part. 

Part of you is staying here, and it won't ever leave. 

You'll go somewhere five hundred miles away, or five thousand, but part of you will always be right

here. 

Here, where you drove your bike into the mailbox, 

scarred your knee running late to practice, 

and slipped on shampoo in the shower. 

Here, where you stayed up late talking to your grandmother about nothing, 

where you organized plays and choreography with your cousins, 

and went on long drives with no destination with your sister. 

Here, where you first learned how to love someone, 

where you learned what having a best friend meant. 

 

This part of you clings so tightly to your ankles, 

begging you to stay;

you want to listen to her,

because she looks so small

and she has your eyes. 

Instead, you squeeze her as tightly as you can and keep going. 

Because you have to. 

She keeps your bed warm while you're away, 

and you both adjust to the new space. 

Part of you stays in every home you've ever loved. 

In every heart you've ever loved. 

You leave these pieces of yourself behind, 

in hopes you won't be forgotten.

You won't be. 

Leaving feels like choking on the names of every person you have ever loved.

A necessary evil, until its not. 

Until it's a new bed, 

new friends, 

and new ways to figure out exactly what you're trying to do 

here. 

A whole new you, and there's still that part of you in your old bed back 

here, waiting;

she never really leaves you, just tags along to new destinations, 

leaving memories along the way like flower petals down an aisle. 

Never gone for long, but never fully

here.