Baggage Claim

from The Valley Is Not Your Home by Janelle Maree

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

Purchasable with gift card

name your price
Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

I carry travel sized issues wherever I go.
Fear of abandonment
pairs nicely with a hesitation to trust.
They are kept beneath both a layer of
codependency and intimacy anxiety,
a constant contradiction,
wrinkled and disheveled,
I wear them every day.
I am beginning to unpack
my baggage on these pages.
Poetry lessens the load.
Handle with care
was scrawled across my skin
in thick black letters
on the day that I was born,
but I was still drawn to the people
who were careless with me.
I chose them over the ones
who tried to wrap their arms around me
so that I would not break.
I don’t want to be damaged goods.
I want to send all this luggage away,
but I fear the cost of shipping is too great.
It all feels like too much.
I ask myself what if the weight is too much.
I ask this too much.
I know I can’t carry it all on my own.
So, I’m gonna start letting some of it go.
I am using poems.
I write it out as much as I can.
I write as much as I can.
When the burden is light enough
I will keep moving.
I will not pick up any of my baggage
once I set it down.
I will not look for it in lost and found
because I have found
that I have more than I have lost.
Building trust is painful for me
but I brace myself.
I lean in to it.
I try again and again.
It’s getting easier.
I am adapting to the pain.
It is worth it.
I fear people will never love me enough
to stay.
So, I either keep my distance,
afraid to not be enough,
afraid to be too much,
or I try begging to be needed,
demanding too much from myself,
desperate to earn love,
pleading for it to be permanent.
I’m learning to stay somewhere in between;
an open door
but a security guard always on duty.
I will not beg anyone to come in and stay anymore.
I can’t leave my issues behind
but I am strong enough to carry them
and with every collection of poems
my shoulders find relief.

credits

from The Valley Is Not Your Home, released February 24, 2019

license

about

Janelle Maree California, Maryland

27 year old poet, special education para-educator, Netflix enthusiast, devoted daughter, sister and friend. You can always find me either singing Disney songs, laughing loudly or talking about hope.