Home

she tried to explain to me that she wanted to go home but her home was far away from where we were. her home was burnt down and the doors and all the windows were paneled shut with wooden boards. her home was no longer there. she had no home.

we were just driving around in my old truck. our search for a party was unsuccessful and the ice cream parlors had closed hours before so we decided to just drive. I don't know where we were driving to or why we even had to drive but I guess in a way that was somehow relevant to the way our lives were unraveling. I wasn't the happiest person in the world but I was happy when I was with her, and that's all that really mattered in my eyes. She just wanted to go home.

We drove through familiar neighborhoods. We drove past the park we had both been to dozens of times during elementary school. We drove past the train stations. We drove past the familiar houses of old friends that we had lost touch with. We drove past the familiar lights of the stores and their signs. We drove until we no longer knew where we were. We stopped in some abandoned parking lot that superseded a long patch of grass. The air smelled different and the sky was clear. The stars were out.

I started to imagine where the people I loved were at what they were doing at this current moment. My mother sleeping on the couch, the couches half covering her and half falling off. My father upstairs in a fog of sleepy consciousness. My brother, slowly losing his head more and more to the wrath her created for himself. Withering away in a jail cell until we couldn't wither away anymore.

I kind of felt bad for everyone. They were so stuck in their ways, so caged by their circumstances. Nobody was comfortable and everything was full of shit. There was no home for me. But I was still young and free, ready to see the world and stretch my limbs. I didn't want to be like them. I didn't want to feel my insides deteriorate as my mind yelled at me to keep going. I wanted unison, harmony. I wanted to be grounded and centered.

Together, with our hands interlocked and our eyes and feet set forward, her and I would run the world together. We had a dream and we wanted it to become a reality, her and I. I wanted her and I wanted all of her and I hoped to god she felt the same way. I hoped she felt the same.

I turned over on my side in order to allow myself to look into her eyes. For a brief second she looked like she wanted to cry, but as our eyes met and the centers of our pupils locked into place, she smiled a gentle smile and it looked as if she had become overwhelmed with inner peace. "What is it?" I asked. "What is it?"

She nuzzled her head against my shoulder, kissing my ears and holding me close. "I need you. I want you. I love you. You are my home. I need you."

I don't know why she decided to say it then. I don't know how or why but at that moment it was as if I was lifted off of the earth and floating on a dense cloud with her and only her. It was like being a world in which you can only see the people you love. She was the one I loved. We only had each other. I didn't need to know anything else. I didn't need to want anything or need anything else and for a couple seconds I could have sworn I felt out hearts beating in unison. I felt our blood pumping at the same rate. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

She wanted to go home and I wanted to go home and together, we were our home.