An online publication for creative work from diverse students at South Puget Sound Community College

May 2nd: Rootless Heart by Carmen McElroy

I’ve got a rootless heart, no soil to bind or keep, Caught between where I’ve been and where the stars still sleep. Loved you like the ocean loves the deep, wild and free, But you let me drift, full of promises we couldn’t keep

Oh, I’d bleed the stars just to keep you near, Trade the night’s quiet for your voice in my ear. But this unmoored soul is bound to stray, Seeking pieces of itself, in places far away.

I wander coastlines, and mountains etched with rain, I follow the echo of a place I’ll never find,

An unmoored soul, no shore to claim as mine.

Haunted by the whispers of a home I’ve yet to know,

A timeless ache that only deepens as I go.

If hunger could prove love, I’d starve by your side, But what’s the use of longing when it’s only pride? I’d tear through mountains, through the endless night, If only you’d turn, see me bathed in that light.

Trace the rivers that hold the tears I can’t seem to cry, A rootless heart is bound to roam, bound to break, clinging to shadows that memory can’t shake

I’ve got a rootless heart, tossed with the tide, Drifting between places, with nothing left to hide. In the echoes of the space in between, in rivers far apart, I’m lost but still searching for my stopping point

Oh, I’d bleed the stars just to keep you here, But you’re a ghost now, just dust and fear. And this rootless heart is bound to roam, Lost and unanchored, still seeking its home

Carmen McElroy

Transfer DTA

Carmen is a queer Indigenous activist, deeply rooted in the lands and waters of the Pacific Northwest. Her identity intertwines with her ancestral ties to the Salish Sea and her passion for environmental stewardship and LandBack. She is an outspoken advocate, raised by a community that values connection and resilience. Her dad took her to her first water rights protest when she was very young and she has been protesting ever since. As a native woman, she is viscerally aware of the continued erasure of her people and the systematic inequality that native people face. A huge focus of her work is on tribal sovereignty and their right to self-governance.