Can't go home again | Poetry Prompt

Fellow poets, please allow me to apologize to you. My mind has been totally blown by visiting my native land of West Virginia. I was confused and thought I was posting next week. Please accept my apology.

I live in Hawai'i now and things are so incredibly different between the two states: culturally, food-wise, environment. Then there's things that are so similar- the closeness of families, the outright friendliness to your neighbor, and the feeling of isolation. Every year I go home to visit. The expression, "You can't go home again," worries at the back of my mind. Can I ever truly go home?

Let's take that idea further. 

Mental Exercise:

10 quiet minutes: Picture the place that is the home of your heart. Is it where you live now? Is it your childhood home? A church you frequented as a child? Your teenage best friends parents' house? Your first car? Take slow deep breaths with your eyes closed and think about "home" whatever it means to you. Try to remember a time when you were the happiest there, or when you felt like you were the most at home. Try to hold onto that memory and take note of colors, people who are around you, sounds, tastes, smells, anything that comes along with that memory.

Writing Exercise:

Write down the words that have given you the strongest impression of home. Some of the strongest memories are the sensory ones connecting your sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell to the world around you. Remember thse

Poetry Prompt:

Take your sensory perceptions and try to revisit "home" as someone absolutely new. What would this person see, feel? How would the experience be different for that new person? Is it a positive or negative? Have fun with this and push yourself a little bit. It's an interesting exercise in pushing our perceptions in life.

Tamara Woods writes, because she can’t imagine any other life. She grew up in the poorest state in the U.S., West Virginia, as a laid-off coal miner’s daughter. She learned from this that money isn’t the root of all happiness, but it sure makes it easier. One fateful 5 at a youth workshop she learned both the art of stolen kisses and being open in her poetry: lessons she’s never forgotten. Tamara’s poetry is spoken word with a heavy emphasis on things that we all know and do. Her fiction hits on darker, uncomfortable subjects, because she’s a firm believer that stories can be beautiful without being pretty. She is the Editor of The Reverie Journal, online poetry site. She is the moderator of #writestuff a writing tweetchat that's every Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST. Find her poetry on her blog, PenPaperPad. Connect on Social Media: Follow her on Twitter, like her on Facebook, and check out her book and writing videos on YouTube.