Homecoming

By Lucy Mackarel

Evening has settled when I return by bus

For the first time, in a long time

To the place I refer to as

My ‘hometown’.

I know every bend and fork

Down these tree-lined roads

And yet,

I don’t.

Everything seems different now,

But nothing has changed.

Perhaps it is me,

I am not the same.

This house no longer feels like home,

I am not the girl they’ve always known.

As I leave, a feeling settles,

Deep within my bones.

And I wonder –

If I will ever return again.  

Lucy is a second-year English Lit and Creative Writing student from Monaghan. College changes a lot in your personal life and relationships with both the people around you and yourself and these poems were trying to explore that.