It Is.

Home.

It is everything.

The cool breath of autumn settling on lavender-kissed bedspread as the dream world beckons.

Dad's occasional sneeze-attacks puncturing the news weather report on a pollen-filled morning.

Mom humming "My Heart Will Go On" and me knowing that it would.

Liszt's Liebestraum perfuming the air, or just my earbuds on the afternoon bus ride.

Those cotton candy footprints pricking the sky with stuttering stride.

Belted songs at midnight. Peanut butter film on my tongue. The yawn of my scalp when the bobby pins descend. 

And it's salt and sorrow.

Spilt milk and strawberry stains.

Stammered syllables and stolen stages.

All the breath we never lost and every one we did.

All the hazy days of looking up at the world.

Home. 

It is everything and more.

It's wish it was more when it's there and wish it was here when it's gone. 

Here, and gone. Here, and gone.

With every flicker comes more to illuminate.

But home isn't like us.

It has no hair to wither, no teeth to lose, no smiles to fade. 

No roots to grow more stubborn in one soil.

It's the always we have, and the always-nevers.

It's the paint that's your Picasso, my stick figure.

It's the earth of all Earth caked in tires, a decade lugging around three silly hearts. 

It's the dust we leave when our curtains are drawn.

It's the everything we make out of somethings

Or one thing

Or nothing at all.