Military Kid Tanka

Cardboard suffuses

My empty wooden dollhouse

Voices echoing

Weaving to a fuller place

A home none of us have known

A jumble of life

Is unpacked, yet entangled

Old and new twisted

Try to brush it out, but still

Last year’s dust coats the fresh walls

Step on odd sidewalks

Soles tracking differences

Every day the same

Pretending I belong here

Until the months convince me

Strangers’ faces stare

Specters on a TV screen

Then I memorize

Each one without forgetting

The countless people before

Scars wind through my heart

But healed and fortifying

The structure of life

Affection bleeds into view

Crafting a brighter sunrise

This poem is modeled after a tanka, a type of Japanese poem. Tankas typically tell stories of emotions or pivotal moments. This story includes both, depicting the emotional journey of moving.