THREE YEARS TOMORROW
a poem and a remembering
March 22, 2026
CHURCHYARD POEM FOR THE CROW GIRL
written in the inbetween place, for what was lost and what remained
In a churchyard in South London I sat with my notebook open and the eviction letter still warm in the pocket of my coat. The cherry trees in Epping had bloomed without asking permission — pink and absurd and relentless, the way spring insists on arriving even when you are being unmade.
I had ten days left in my second home. Ten days to fold a life into boxes that would never be unpacked the same way. My passport was expired — mine, the old one — so I walked to the embassy and said emergency and they gave me a new face to fly home with.
Hope — my adorable, impossible cat — had to fly too. She who had never left the garden, who thought the world ended at the fence post, was lifted into a carrier and carried above the clouds back to a country she had never seen. And I thought: we are the same now, you and I — displaced, bewildered, trusting only that the arms carrying us mean well.
In the photography class I made my last self-portraits. My face against South London brick, my face in an Airbnb mirror, my face in the afternoon light that didn't know it was the last light to fall on me in England. I wanted proof that I had existed here. That this place had held me.
A person I did not know had ripped me open and I wanted it to go away — not die, just not have existed at all. But it was irreversible, and no matter what I did, I had already existed in the world and it was too late.
So I sat in the churchyard between the gravestones and the daffodils and I wrote a poem because that is what the crow girl does — she writes when the world bends double from weeping. She writes when her heart is near retired. She lets the helpless optimism of spring get in, yes, she lets it get in, because the birds will begin to sing whether she is ready or not.
Forget me not — but I am the one who must remember. Three years later, the cherry trees still bloom. Hope still sits in windows. And I am still here, writing in churchyards, which is to say: still alive, which is to say: still becoming, which is to say: not that I have come far — but still.
THE REMEMBERING
A journal entry for March 22, 2026 — three years since losing my second home
Tomorrow is the day. Three years since I lost my second home, and again went through tremendous trauma. Three years since the cherry blossoms in Epping bloomed pink against a grey English sky, not caring that my world was ending.
I took notes during this time. Voice notes on my phone, scribbled words in my Notes app, a poem in a photography class, and a self-portrait series in the inbetween place — that space between where I was and where I was going, between being held and being let go. South London, near the Airbnb where I spent my last ten days. My face in a mirror. My face against brick. Proof that I was there.
My passport was expired. Mine — the old one. I had to go to the embassy and apply for an emergency passport just to fly back to my little hometown in Sweden. And Hope, my adorable cat, had to fly too. She had never been anywhere. She had lived her whole life in one garden, and suddenly she was in a carrier in the sky, heading to a country neither of us had chosen.
I did take notes during this time — I did. In the photos app, in my notes app, in my voice note app. The self-portrait series was my way of saying I was here, I existed in this place, this place was my home even if it won't have me anymore. The last self-portrait in England. The last light on my face in a country I had loved.
And in the churchyard, between the graves and the spring flowers, I wrote. Because that is what I do. I write when I am being unmade. I write when I cannot breathe. The crow girl, the forget-me-not girl, the girl who sits among the dead and finds words for the living.
Three years. I wanted to create something beautiful tomorrow. Not that I have come far. But still. But still.
for Hope, who flew
for the cherry blossoms, who bloomed anyway
for the churchyard, which held my words
for the girl in the self-portrait, who was braver than she knew
Alice