Home aka Hero’s Journey

Home, a four-letter word I couldn’t wait to escape.

A place from which I ran

after I knew I could no longer stay.

The beginning of my hero’s journey,

reluctant to take shape.

Home, a place where they say

you can never return

because it will never stay the same.

So I left you, believing

our paths would never cross again.

I went out to find new adventures.

To find new mentors.

Someone to teach me

to create a new place to call my own.

I traveled as a stranger,

awkwardly trying to find a home.

A purpose, a new town, a new family,

a hole that fit my peg

or, more likely, a place to shave

the edges of my peg

to fit the hole of the world

that my mind could never quite encapsulate.

I never expected that through the chaos

and lessons of the mistakes

that I never meant to make,

it would be here,

in this foreign city

of the sliver of a lunar shape,

that I would find reminders

of the home from which I escaped

but would now need to return

and assimilate.

People that would remind me of home.

A new best friend,

who on the surface would remind me

so much of the one I left,

but now here I could show to him

the love that the inexperience of my youth

got in the way.

But now I am older and wiser,

but not so different

that despite our decades difference,

I am transformed back

to that familiar home.

To you, my angel of the past,

I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

With the clicking of the reverse clock

you took me back,

giving me the opportunity

to slay the croc that ate at me

for not being the friend

I always wished to lend.

And to you,

the quiet-talking girl

with many things to say.

You don’t fight to be anything

but the substance of yourself.

Your edge hardened like mine

because of where we are from, CT.

But when I moved away from the noise

that surrounds the room

and take the opportunity to engage,

I hear a softness

that you may have never wanted to betray.

And while I am not the D you seek,

I see you. I appreciate you.

You have centered me.

It was here,

in this crescent city,

I have found a higher plane

and a will to maintain.

Jesse Lee

11/17/2025