i leave to become someone.
tears are falling. every time i leave, mom spills water from the jug behind me
maybe to wash them off, but maybe just to divert attention
that happiness can still be forcibly awakened.
i’m leaving and thinking about where i live when i leave…
my home is my mother’s unbrushed hair.
my home is the flowers in the yard that we forgot about…
and that one today she got for her birthday.
although she knows that it will soon wither
she still changes the water in the vase
(sounds like we never forget
that without success does not mean in vain).
my home is my father’s hand – that living wall
between
me and the cosmos
new wars and old warriors
bad artwork and famous artists
stony heart and tetralogy of fallot
(one never means the other).
in fact
my mother’s eyes are also my home
those glasses through which lives are viewed
like field flowers that the naive wave
those windows i peek through
staring at pockets of the sky
looking for god to ask him something.
my home is also her toothbrush
another reminder that words can be washed away
so we can clean ourselves
as long as we have someone to show our teeth to.
i walk away and turn my head back.
the outside lights on the house are on, we forgot to turn them off.
i will never forget the night before
when father turned on those same outside lights
that those who have not spoken to him can carry firewood.
it’s cold, the world needs warmth!
now, he is looking out from the window and watching my steps.
since he had a heart attack, he is not allowed to go out in the cold.
if i were a woman, i would cry, i am thinking to myself.
it is running through my memory…
all those smiles in our pictures,
all my successes in school,
all those war-erased soccer trophies from my father’s youth,
all those rags of the hard-working housewife – my mother…
i am watching all those dead events in my mind
and trying to relive it as a catharsis
(the past is never caught for hands).
my home is also an orthopedic aid in the corner of the living room.
three of us but only five legs.
that plastic leg as a war survivor’s medal
it is waiting for tomorrow – to walk again
and to remind us to keep going as long as there is tomorrow.
some list is on the table. an asterisk next to my name,
it means something.
i am leaving and thinking about where i live when i leave…
i slipped up.
i still look like the oldest twenty-two year old in the world.
i slipped up.
i’m still leaving to come back.
WILDsound Writing Festival 