Homesick
by Tris Kerslake
They say that time and distance mend, that counted hours and days can knit the raggy edges neat, can coat the bone, and cloud the scalpel scars. They even say that ignorance is bliss, when understanding, cast upon the wind might blur the sharpness of the act into shapes of comfort.
These words are false.
No passing age can reconcile the ache and there are insufficient miles around this weary globe to ease the constant want of old backyards, I am cut too deep.
Superficial wounds of absence vanish like the braded skin which clings to scuffings of the knee. One hundred broken bones cannot compare to a second’s exile.
And where my present knowledge ends, with insight razed by severance and foreign things, there is no bliss nor lessening of pain. The choice I made reduces me.