"I miss the bush every day"

Fig Russon-Jorgensen reflects on their POEM FOREST poem 'i want to stay/i want to go/the universe is asking for me to come home'.

Growing up, leaving home, finding a new life in a different world away from the familiarity of your upbringing. Pretty much a universal experience that is simultaneously so incredibly individual and personal. Moving from the vibrant bushland of St. Andrews, surrounded by massive properties, a bustling Saturday market, and intrinsic experiences of youth (baths in the sink, bats in the fruit trees, hot days without an aircon) to Brunswick's city streets was almost like whiplash. I still find things that remind me of home here, but I miss the bush every day.

'i want to stay/i want to go/the universe is asking for me to come home' reminisces on my early childhood in rural Victoria, juxtaposed with the transition into adulthood and moving into the city. I recite feelings of nostalgia, drawing gentle comparisons between the two vastly different environments to illustrate the melancholy homesickness and the overwhelming loneliness that comes with leaving home. These ideas are woven into suggestions of seasonal depression, feeling the summer heat beneath the sunburn to an emotional level, grieving a past self. The poem is also fragmented, employing caesura to visualise a disjointed sentiment. The reader is forced to make pauses, to take breaths -- like a line break without a line break.