"Home" By Eden Hitchcock (2nd Place Winner, Top of Iowa 9th/10th Grade - Poetry)

Eden Hitchcock is a freshman at Lincoln Highschool in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In her free time, of which she generally has little, she enjoys reading, writing, and playing her ukelele on the roof.

She is staring at her dusty hands
wondering if they show that she came from
dry dirt roads
or their end –
the great wide blue
that filled her mind.
She wasn’t born into it,
she believes,
but grew into it
like a soft
hand-me-down.
She thinks
I’m outgrowing it.
She thinks
I want to wrap it around me
but now I can’t.
She thinks, Ma I’m scared.
She watches a fly
dart at the car window and thinks
maybe we are all just trying
to get home
but she doesn’t know if she knows
where her’s is anymore.