Home?

12:54. I sit awake at night at my desk, pencil in hand. Tired, worn out, I stare at the sheet of white, waiting for the words to come.

From the corner of my eye, I can see the boxes that sit in the corner of the room. They are filled with memories — memories sightly faded, yet still richly bittersweet to the tongue. The memories from my school days, the letters from long-dead friends, the small items left to me from various individuals: some close to my heart, others blank and faceless. I wanted to keep them; I spent my time carefully packaging them, but I don’t know why.

There’s the feather from when I was eight at the ostrich farm; the individual barbs squashed and arrayed from a decade of travel. There’s the canvas painted by an old friend of mine when we were both into the same book series. There’s a dream catcher from my first arcade visit for a friend’s birthday, the bracelet of pins I earned in middle school, a souvenir from another person’s trip to Asia while I have never left this country. There’s another box of letters; I’ve kept every one and remember every face, though still, I don’t know why.

Why are they here? I sit in my room on the chair I helped to reupholster that I’ve insisted on keeping. My childhood books are here, though I rarely turn over their pages. I’m still carrying the T-shirts and photos of my past; my past of broken relationships and fighting for peace of mind from the never-ending ridicule from my peers.

But why? I remember every face, every hand that held the pen of the letters in that box; every voice of name on that shirt from my graduating class of bullies and mistaken acquaintances. I don’t see the point of any of it — not the good, not the bad — because none of it matters when all of them are dead.

They died long ago after I left. Or was it me that died while the world moved on without me? Every step I’ve taken, every place I’ve departed; they’ve all disappeared once I turned my back to look behind. Arizona, Colorado, California, even my beloved Georgia — I have no living connections left to them now. All I have left are the remnants of my deceased childhood, wrapped in newspaper and carried down the highway in these cardboard boxes.

But what’s the point in carrying these memories? Why do I constantly pack and unpack these lamented echos of time again and again and again? What’s the point holding on when there’s no home to tie my rope to?

I’ve never had a home. They say that home is more of a person than a geographical location, but though I live with my parents, all I have known in my relationships has never lasted long enough for me to know what eternity feels like. Even now, I walk these rooms and I see walls of cardboard. I don’t have a home; I live in that cardboard box of memories sitting unsealed but still packed in the corner of the room. I’ve never wanted to stay there, but I just don’t know how to stop running.

I don’t understand people. They stay in a place and make connections that last across oceans, but here I am crying over friendships that never lasted longer than three or four years. I’ve always keep fighting to keep people in my life, but there’s no greater ache in my heart than the knowledge that there is not one friend left that knew me before I moved west. When I was happy. I think I used to make connections easily, but now I don’t see the point when I know they won’t be there behind me once I’m gone.

I don’t want to keep running. But I often don’t have the choice. The government, the industries, the communities — they take and they take until there is nothing left for you to live on. So you are pushed out, and life starts over. Over and over, you rebuild your life: building and mingling and making plans for the long-term. You plan ahead, planting seeds and drafting your next life. But fate is cruel and money is greed, and soon enough you’re back in that cardboard box in the corner of the room, waiting to be carried over to the next world.

And those drafts all vanish. I planned to play in a band. I planned to graduate and move in with my friends from the fourth grade. I planned to travel the land and make connections that would last the rest of my life. I planned for some much. But time does not care for your plans.

The world will move on with or without me. No matter how long I stay, no matter how long I fight, no matter how hard I cry, “Please God, let the Earth stop turning,” it still spins on. So dawn goes down to day, so Eden sank to grief. The past lingers on for awhile, but it will eventually fade and I will be forgotten. I still have the letters — the ones sent from the post office — written in my hand to friends of past friendships, returned unopened.

I want to let it go. I’m tempted to throw out the letters, to climb out from the depths of this box that I sit in. I want to stand out on the street; I want to feel the sun and it rises and warms on my face. I want to go back, I want to move forward — I want to go to sleep and wake up with a ring on my finger, or maybe just close my eyes and never wake up again.

But I can’t. It’s 1:27, and I’m still in this cardboard box, drowning in these faded writings piling up in the corner of the room. I know the pen of each of those letters, but the only one that has truly stayed is the one I hold in my hand at this very moment. People die every day. I watch their smiles and the light in their eyes as they slowly ebb away from their lifeless faces. One word, one look, one turn of their back, and they are gone. I can’t speak to them, I cannot hear their voice, and I can never see them again. Is this not what death is? I long to have a home, but I don’t even understand what friendship is.

But here I sit. And here I breathe. I see the light as it casts shadows of the pen dancing across the cursive letters written on the page. It’s not the end for me yet — it is only a new beginning. There are more battles to fight, there are more people to lose. But maybe in time, Time will be nice to me. It will be nice to the pen in my hand, to the trifles in the box still sitting untouched in the corner of the room. There’s still things I want to say — there’s still statements left for me to make. And maybe someday I’ll stop running; I’ll stop trying to fix my past.

I ask you, Time, will I ever have a home?

1:42. I look around with no one else to see. I am alone in the night, sitting in a cardboard box, surrounded by the letters I left to waste in the corner of the room. I’ve lost myself, but I haven’t lost my pen. So I write. I write on the walls, I write on the floor, I write over every empty surface until the words absorb me and I see myself in front of my face. I don’t quite know who this is, but I see them in the voice that paints the cursive red marks on the surfaces around me. And all is silent. This isn’t my home — I’ve never had one. But this is me, and I have to live with it. The box is empty now, and all that surrounds me now are the scarlet characters scratched out on the walls surrounding me.

Home. I wonder what that must mean. I wonder what it would feel like. I have a friend now — how would that feel to last? He’s different from those who have since died, and for once, I think I’m ready to fight to keep him alive. I guess I will never have a home, but I can try to build one. I suppose that’s what my life is — a constant cycle of ongoing construction interrupted by recurring hurricanes. But I keep starting over. And for the first time in my life — with my pen, with this friendship — I think I’ve found something worth rebuilding for.

1:56. The whispers of the pen have gone. It sits alone on the desk atop the pages no longer blank. The letters are scattered over the floor and spilling out from the corner of the room. The boxes will be gone tomorrow. The light goes out, and all is silent in the room.