Dear Pacific Northwest

Dear Pacific Northwest,

With your tangled evergreen hair, and eyes of muted grey

Valleys that hold hold villages and mountains that keep them contained

For seventeen summers you held me near

Cradling me in your cracks and crannies, letting me clamber up close to the sky

Nurturing every misstep with a crash pad of moss

But your mountainous arms have become an impenetrable wall that traps me inside

I have slid down silver slopes in the winter,

Skated over frozen lakes, and skidded into snowdrifts

But the once beautiful cold has become bitter after so many years

Rendering me frigid with no hope of thawing

As your fledging, I long to fly away east

To Ontario, Québec or over the border and out of your grasp

One too many rainy days has made you unbecoming

And you are the mother I dread coming home to

I thank you for your dedication, and bear no resentment

Now is the moment to move on

One day I’ll yearn for your confines again,

With winding forest paths and pink-painted mornings

But that time is yet to come.