coming home.

Crazy as it sounds,
I miss my childhood. my authentic experience.

I cling to the scraps of it. I fight back the black decay of my forgetfulness. My depression. And carefully gather every hard won detail I can remember. My dead name scrawled into the baseboards of my childhood home.

my lifetime home.
It’s gone now. I still haven’t seen the black hole where it used to stand.

I hold that yellow house in my memories, a shining spot. my home.
I can still walk around the house in my mind even though the floorboards are torn away.

I liked swimming. I remember the lake, the muck, the memories as old as I am at the bottom of it.

The mud I got to sink my feet into, once a year, when I embraced the cold depths. I plunged down, toes first, falling fast as I could
reaching out for that squishy wet feel- I knew it was there, but the memory couldn't compare to the real thing.
And I'd sink down, as if into a cushion. Finally touching the mud. a mucky dirty matter
And I'd launch all the way back up, for a breath, for my body. Breathe in deep, reluctant, squinting at the sun, missing the mud.
I'd dive right back down again, face first, hands reaching out now. Arms outstretched for that soft impact.

Dark, icky, mucky, dirty. Soft as a feather but denser than sand. It would envelop my hands, and I'd plunge the depths with them, reaching out for something solid. It was always such silky soft dirt. I'd reach far far down, my body submerged in the water, with my hands submerged in the dirt. and I could always pull them away easily, my body already straining for air again. Time to go, so I'd reach out once more, gather it to take back.

My sisters were always scared to go with me. I loved the experience, and I'd try and take it back with me. I wanted them to share in it. I took the earth, scooping it up in my hands to bring back to my sisters. My earthly gifts. They looked, touched, curious, and then disgusted. It smelled bad when it was out of the water. Like, dead fish, and boat motors, the earth's remains. And it dried up, that muddy sandy earth. I never could get tired of it. I'd let it fall back into the water, with a plop. And hold my hands under the surface, allowing the water to rinse away the mess.

I always offered them whatever I could scrounge up.

At night, I was their leader. We’d go on sneaky expeditions to get midnight snacks.

I still do not know why I was so scared in that house
Scared to make a sound. To ask for what I needed. To make my mark.

I am scared. I do fear.
But I am also brave
And strong
And I do what I need to despite my fears

My imagination gives me the darkest images. I see pits and holes and monsters in my home, trap doors I can fall down, memories that hold me captive and force me to suffer. There are always doors I am afraid to open. Creaky floorboards I don't want to touch, in case someone's listening for it. I fear, I suffer for my imagination.

but then I force it to work twice as hard, and remember the past, and imagine a brighter future.

One where I am playing with my sisters in the kitchens at 2 am, lights on, not afraid to make a noise in the house we grew up in.

The walls in the kitchen were painted by us
We made art in that house
And we grew up in a different time

And I remember.

I remember my dad telling me he saw it. Gone. The gutted walls, and empty pits, and dead flowers and stolen stones and every piece we put there, intentionally, being torn out without a second thought.

I’m scared to see it. Scared to see it gone, or see something better. To go and see nothing at all and know that’s how easy a lifetime can be wiped out.

Scraped up by some mega millionaire who does not know what a happy child looks like, and never got to see the chaos of a real life being lived. A new life, a whole person. We grew up in that place, and they use it as another holiday home.

Those idiots. Living on a polluted lake that once was a freshwater spring. I never saw clear water there, but I grew up in that swamp. I lived and played in that dirt. They come changing it, years later, disrespectful to our personal messes and disgusted by what we deal with on a daily basis.

I miss my home.