This is What Home Looks Like

 It’s chilly outside and I find myself reaching over to tug on my non-existent sleeves because they don’t belong to me anymore, they belong to the phrase ‘Seize the day’.

The winter doesn’t make sense to me, but then and again, it never did. Maybe it’s just a metaphor for life and death because that’s the only thing that makes sense to me because, hey, screw logic.

I leave clues behind relating to my human condition but love is blind and so am I.

I’m on a journey to understand myself but it looks like you’re first priority here, which should be a bad thing but for some reason it isn’t. Before I want to understand what’s at the heart of this thing I call myself, I want to look into those bags underneath your eyes and your laugh lines and those scars that you’ve healed from and feel you.

Home is the place where your heart is but the thing is, I can’t stay home as much as I want to because, unfortunately, it has to take vacations much too often. And you wonder why I don’t like traveling to Hawaii.

 

We were once on a road trip to find ourselves and to stretch out of those frustrating things called comfort zones. We took pit stops along the way and I looked into that bonfire and up at those stars and I saw the both of us. There was a center of the earth and it was where I stood for those moments.

You call me moody but that’s only because you don’t see the whole picture. You can’t see the photo albums that I’ve had to pull from the trash bins because the others didn’t care enough to keep them. Unfortunately enough, the whole ‘light dying from his/her eyes’ thing is something only noticed if that’s what you’re looking for.

I wrapped myself up in that blanket stitched with both cotton and that sunrise we chased for hours but the thing is, it only warmed up my outside and it wasn’t enough to unfreeze the ice forming on my heart.

It was a temporary thing, don’t worry. Warming up again could be as easy as leaning in front of a roaring fireplace.

 

For a minute, I pretended I was Benedict Cumberbatch as I looked down into that ocean water and I stretched out my arms and fell. It was an experiment to see whether it was my body or my soul that was heavier.

Unfortunately, the idea of a soul might just be a concept created by the human existence so we could explain the differences between ourselves. But that doesn’t matter because it’s my reality.

I’m started to claim my own part of the world and the truth of the matter is, if my soul and heart weighed as much as they should, the world would cease to exist.

 

Life is painful and time is what we’re prescribed to cope with it.

 

The truth of it is, I think that the kid who ordered the French toast even though he wanted the chicken fingers at Denny’s is my painkiller.

That sounds stupid and I know I’m not supposed to make people into my anchors because, in the end, they’re part of life, but the truth of the matter is, I’ve overdosed on time.

That and thinking about snow forts makes me want to run down the hill and into the sunrise while you try and lift me off my feet because I haven’t built my wings yet.

 

I looked back last night but I also looked ahead. I saw everything that the boy from Denny’s and I could be.

I saw the morning where I said the first truth that mattered to me more than the air in my lungs.

I wish words could suffice but to be honest, nothing can compare to when it was the three of us in the truck with the song ‘Forbidden Friendship’ playing. It was getting dark outside, but I saw far more than the night and the route we were traveling.

 

I’m going to wrap you up in my truth because that’s one way you’ll always stay warm. I’m going to try these words on like a new pair of shoes.

Innocence and fear and experience is what they’ve put on your heart in permanent ink and the only way I can think to get rid of it is to write over it in a different color.

I’m determined to take a light blue sharpie to the thing that’s keeping you alive and I’m going to show you that although heartbreak is one of the side effects listed on my label, I’ll do whatever I can do prevent that.

I beg you to ignore the ratty caution tape and the broken bits of glass and the messy wet paint and to instead see the battleground that I keep winning on.

I beg you to dip your toes in the water and, although you couldn’t see the warning labels on your past, the letters I’ll write will make it worth it.

 

I want to see raspberry stains on your cheeks and pen marks on your fingertips and lipstick smudges on your face.

I want to see your eyes become candles in the night and I want your singing voice to be Track 1 on my playlist of favorite sounds. (Track 2 is the sound of your laughter)

I want to be the purpose of your smile and I want to be part of that file in your mind labeled ‘Things I Never Want to Forget’

As you can tell, I’m taking this opportunity to be selfish because the sun is coming up and once the night is gone I’m scared we’ll forget.

I’m scared that when the night disappears, it’ll take those three words and all they mean with it because words can be as fragile as feathers.

 

But it doesn’t matter because even if light steals away the night, I’ll still know that home exists.

I’ll still know that ‘awesome’ is something I am and your hands and arms can do far more than what people know.

Your lips were made for more than just forming words or kissing, they were made so you could smile when you saw something beautiful.

Your fingers are what you use to fiddle with metal or small rocks or whatever else you can find.

Your eyes were made to take in the world around you and form it into thoughts and feelings and words like it’s clay and you’re the artisr

 

I keep describing you because that’s all I hear and all I see and all I feel and all I think.

My words are a poor excuse for me trying to find a way to describe how you’ve changed the speed at which my heart beats. (Which I’ve already told you but I’m going to tell you again because I’m afraid you don’t understand.)

 

I suppose that what I’m trying to say is that thinking about you is my addiction.

I keep seeing those nights and those days and everything.

“You’re going to have short kids.”

When I found you sitting in the dark, researching that dragon on World of Warcraft

That photo of you grinning at me like a four year old who’s just been given a warm chocolate cookie right out of the oven.

When you took off your glasses while we were sitting down at dinner

When you laughed so hard you nearly fell off of your chair and you covered your mouth and looked at me like you’d just been caught doing something hilariously humiliating

When you randomly put your hand on my back and I looked up at you curiously and you just.. smiled.

 

Every time I look back at you, every time you smile at me, let me tell you..

Summer starts in my heart and teenagers start decorating the walls with graffiti instead of slurs and someone somewhere kisses someone for the first time and a baby takes its first breath and someone laughs at someone else and a couple falls in love.

Thunderstorms turn into tromping through puddles while it rains and rainbows become miracles and bananas become a childhood hatred that makes sense to almost nobody but that’s okay.

The stars start aligning and the moon shines.

I know the moon is bright but it’s in those moments that it really shines because the world is so much brighter.

 

My heart’s on its way home and I know that it’ll be a long, difficult road but that’s what things like bonfires and movies and laughter and late night Roxberry trips are for.

I don’t mind the wait because all I can think about is how the moon will shine that much brighter for you and I

And don’t worry

Because I’ve still got that light blue permanent marker in hand

And I promise you that this time,

This time I’ll write all of these things on top of the black marks and scars,

This time I’ll do all I can to make it right