i leave soon. to oregon. to this promise in a land i've never seen and not a soul who knows my name.

i could recreate, intensify, demystify. i could become the person that you've always wanted me to be.

i could lose myself all over again, or i could ground further in the totems that have named and realized me.

i can walk away from him, his shit. i can never talk to him again.

i can force her to grow up without me for a while, try to figure out her own paths and stop reveling in my war wounds as if to make them hers.

i can be out from under them and their money.

i can swim free and become the ocean. i will embody the fluidity and strength, power and motion that she is. i will be the sea.