Corinne O’Connor
I miss the summers when we ran laps around the yard,
grass tickling our bare feet.
Those were the summers we’d take the boat out
without Mom and Dad’s permission
and float the bay,
pointing out familiar pinpricks of the lighthouse in the distance.
Salt burned my chapped lips,
splinters of wooden boardwalks burned my toes.
I can’t remember the last time I swam in the bay’s warm waters,
letting the water lap over my head.
We haven’t been under one roof in nearly ten years,
spread to the winds of different countries, different towns.
When does home stop feeling like home?
One brother married, another moved out.
We haven’t talked to each other in months.
Mom and Dad are whispering again
about leaving for good.
I come back home like the tide;
in and out, but sure and steady, cyclic.
I’ve been away for months,
forgetting about the hidden stop sign on the corner of Huron and Lombardy.
I don’t recognize the new row of restaurants on Main,
and I wonder why the stores in the mall are all shuttered.
The Bay Shore – 2 miles sign greets me every time.
I ask myself if it’s home anymore every time I see it.
All of my friends return, just as I do,
and make me wonder about our naive promises
to rent an apartment together and suntan at the beach every day.
That was before bills and college,
before weekend jobs to pay for groceries
turned to full time jobs to pay for tuition due statements.
I see them for two hours after working another 9-5,
then fall asleep as soon as I’m alone in my room.
The whispers turn heavier,
and my parents leaving for good turn into a reality.
I spend heady summer nights rooting through my room,
parsing between what I’ll throw out
and what I’ll have my parents take with them in the move.
(I get rid of more than I’m willing,
but I don’t want them to carry too much.
They’re getting older, after all.)
There will come a day when I’ll come back from break
and it won’t be the Bay Shore – 2 miles sign that I come back to.
It won’t be stretches of sand, or beach towels wiping away beads of saltwater.
I don’t know what I’ll come back to.
But that’s not yet.
Soon, but not yet.
Let me have this one last summer,
let the wind curl through my hair
and let the waves kiss my fingertips.
Let me pretend to feel at home
with the sand between my toes
and sunscreen smeared on my face.
Corinne O’Connor ’25 is a junior genetics and counseling psychology major at Cedar Crest College. On campus, she works for the Office of Student Engagement and as an RA. She is also part of the tennis team. Corinne enjoys writing in her spare time because it is a needed creative outlet for her.