This poem was written after going back to the UK after a year spent abroad. I find it harder to move back to the place I used to call home as I spend more time away. I find it’s like an old self trying to draw me back into a person I used to be. Written October 2018 in the UK.

Everything will work out.
I keep telling myself this,
writing it down on every surface I can;
Everything will be ok.
You are enough.
These words ring true to me somewhere,
I keep losing myself,
this place has a void
where I fell in years ago and never came out.

Whenever I come back to this place
I am quickly lost.
This place asks me to shave myself down
break off parts and leave them at the door.

I try and pick up the pieces left behind
but these ones are misshapen.
Realising I have to craft new ones again,
all this hard work pays off at some point,
but I have to keep building again and again.
Is this the price I pay
for all my insecurities?   

— Jessica Sinclair