I didn’t move out of my parent’s house until I was twenty-three. All my siblings had  grown up and it was just us, the dog and the oak tree we planted as children in the yard. When I visit now, I walk in the door and I’m greeted by a quiet kitchen. The language that was once spoken here has become foreign tongue. My old bedroom at the top of the stairs has indentations in the carpet from my bed frame and the bookshelf. My perfume still lingers in the cotton fibers. The walls are marked with smudges and there is a box of out-grown clothing waiting to be donated in the corner, collecting dust bunnies. The air here is stale–the worn blue curtains blow in the breeze when I open the windowpanes that no longer recognize my reflection. The sun only graced my window in the early hours of the morning. I wish I had the west-facing room, the oak tree just outside, where light flooded through the afternoon–if I did, maybe I would’ve left sooner. I wouldn’t have locked my door to keep out the dark, but it made a home in me like a colony of black mold. My flesh and blood are embedded in the drywall as time passes over this old house. I have fallen out of reach of my own roots. I grow sideways. 

November 2024