by Emily Hamm
A revolving door signifying my entire life
Coming and going
Leaving just one place at the center of it all.
Biddeford! A town built upon wretched history.
Biddeford! Poverty in the streets like a plague.
Biddeford! Growing up amongst the divide.
Biddeford! Those with luxuries, and those with nothing.
Sitting next to the kids without a lunchbox.
The ones who try to blend into the walls, as if they weren’t there at all. Who ask the teacher for a pencil each day.
Who are haunted by a trail of cigarette smoke that isn’t their own.
And then there are the kids with designer sneakers.
The ones that can stay after school for sports.
Who have parents that are insufferably involved,
Who are given the pedestal they stand on.
Biddeford! When you leave the town, it never seems to leave you. Even after years of separation,
You come back, wretched.
A relief from college
I return
It draws you back in.
Here lies the forsaken.
Some stay forever.
Stuck in the continuous loop of
(gloomily) “Hi! Welcome to Ray’s! Can I take your order?” Forever a resident
Those that never leave, the forgotten, are the ones who didn’t have a chance.
A seaside city, a town now on the rise.
Modern, chic, a top place to visit.
Upcoming,
So they claim.
Always
A mill town, deserted now.
Surrounded by tourists
Captivated by the false beauty.
Not a worker in sight.
The ancient lives spent in the mill.
The continual days trapped in the infernal heat of the factory. The suffocation from countless hours spent doing the same task.
And
A quaint college town, right by the water.
Taunting the souls who were never able to leave,
With ridiculously high prices for enrollment that they could never pay. Field trips, explorations, a resource for the future.
I return as an adult
I’ve become a teacher, in the town that draws you back. Returning to the school that hasn’t changed at all,
The same art still hangs on the walls.
When I leave once more, as I inevitably will.
I’ll make sure to grab a burger at Ray’s, on the way out.
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