Homesick Body by Naomi Carr (17, California)

[Content warning: sexual assault]
Homesickness is the average 
temperature of a healthy human body, it’s
baptizing our hands in Uncle’s 
ashes, specs of his life 
between palm creases and 
fingernails— we fantasize— it’s

---

Title IX violations, expanding 
your vocabulary, the 
elderly in my family 
are not big on funerals. 
Home-sickness is funerals, it’s 
the thought of his hands on you--
I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you
​when you were assaulted 
on homecoming night. 
Home; sickness is guilt, it’s 
ripping my heart out, 
stripping naked, dismembering 
my body before your 
eyes. Guilt lives here. Home: sickness
is want without body 
because I would loan you 
my ribcage to love. Home. 
Sickness is the marching band in the
​dining hall that makes 
my body forget how 
to function for a second.