I’m depressed in Lancaster where my family doesn’t belong.

And because I’m not allowed to go to birthday parties or sleepovers,

I’m in my room reading and writing in my lock-and-key diary 

when my parents open my door. They take me for a walk 

at Leola Community Park where I used to swing. Side by side, 

the three of us, on the paved path. We’ve never walked this slow. 

My parents don’t accept my sadness. They depend on my joy. 

My whole life has been this way. I’m thirsty now. Need water. 

Nobody brought water. So why did we leave the house? 

How long have we been walking? What time are we going home? 

In three days, my mother says, balancing a large pot on her head. 

My father looks ahead, a bag of rice on his back. The dog he loves, 

the one I don’t even know we have, we leave behind. In the distance, 

my books are piled high. Covers cracked, pages loose, shredded 

and shot. They were called back to the city, my mother says. To circulate 

in a special collection. It’s okay, my father says and pushes forward. 

We pass the basketball court, the public pool, the playground.

Endless cornfields before us. A row of houses where people live, 

now empty. Pages flutter in the sky, a concentration of birds. 

In this family, I never know where we are going. 

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