Where I Call Home

There are 3 big bumps on my sidewalk, a house I love because a tree casts beautiful shadows on it, a rusty slide in the backyard, and soft, unfertilized grass surrounding my home. The church music vibrates down my street and I sing along on early mornings. The woodpecker that chews at my house, viciously searching for a snack, knows he’s a bother when a loud knocking reply comes through to his side of the wall – and therefore rarely pays a visit anymore. For 17 years, I have waxed, buffed, and polished this highly taxed little town into my home.

I could say I live in a house with four walls, describe the lacking furniture, peeling paint, and clean floors I mopped yesterday. I could say I live on the internet; that I spend at least six hours at school ‘plugged in’. I could also say for seventeen years I’ve lived in the same highly taxed little town. But really, to acknowledge where I’ve lived is to acknowledge where I have made a place my home, so in total I have three: my grandma’s apartment (if only I devour the fridge’s contents), my friend’s house, and lastly, the sky blue house of mine.

The noteworthy places where I’ve lived are the places that welcome me unconditionally. Where I live is not merely subjected to the house that keeps me warm and dry, it’s the freedom I feel from the swings in the park, the world of headphones, loud music, and countless books that provide distraction. In the wooden house I sleep in, I live in the comfort of my bed, the one that absorbs tears, poetic surges, and nightmare screams. The house has been my shelter all my life, but I’ve lived inside and outside of that wood through raw

The noteworthy places where I have lived are the places I have made my home: where I can walk around with a birds’ nest on my head and a pair of old sweatpants in the middle of summer, where I can strip myself bear of superficial emotions and scowl at the people I know will forgive me.