Brialee Turner

In one of my undergraduate classes,
I remember that we talked about place.
How we define it,
why it is important,
and if it is solely physical?

The projector was casting a milky yellow
glow on my professor
and the rest of the room was a shadowy dark.

That place held a lot of pain
and a lot of hope for me.
I wonder if I truly held an understanding
of that map for me?

And now,
my alarm rings and
I am in a different place.

I’ve never been here because
today is now
(and not yesterday
or tomorrow).

But then I wonder to myself,
can a place really stay?
Because how I think about it
in my mind (or my memory) shifts
even though I am adamant that it
does not.

And then when I return to the places
that I thought had so much meaning
and purpose and direction for my life,
those “touchpoints”,
I am so different that the place no longer
catches on my soul
and makes me breath on less than oxygen for a moment.

And then there are places to which I have never
returned,
and moments to which I will never have the
competency and mindfulness to
grasp.

And those places,
(concrete and spiritual)
fill me with a glowy light
that is much brighter than that projector
screen was to my mind.