winter. home.

agnes thor via tinyvices


in my eyes i see what home looks like. every now and then, i can feel it for a moment or two. i'll be lying on the couch with GF and we'll be doing nothing and i'll lean over, handling her delicately because i think she's asleep, and click the laptop on the coffee table to replay the playlist, and lean back. she'll have been awake the whole time and she'll turn her head a little, and we'll hold our lips right near a few moments, like holding two magnets just apart for a few seconds to feel the attraction in your hands, then... click. lips amongst lips. like a bowl of orange segments. ___ walking into my room, when it's still how i left it. looking at my bookshelf and seeing a little microcosm of myself. a few textbooks from my physics days. a few from israel. a whole bunch of novels and books of poetry, all representing different times, different places. inscriptions from different people. sometimes friends, sometimes strangers who owned them before i do. on the last shelf there is a book called entropy pieces, gol had it made for my birthday. a sweet sweet gift, selections of my writings, pictures i'd used on the blog. below that there's what looks like a photoalbum, but if you open it you'll see it's a farewell book mona put together. full of messages and photos and... things that usually make me too sad to look at. especially _ _ _ _ _'s message 'we want you, but the world needs you'. even without looking at the book i remember that line. it haunts me. nags at me. makes me think if she was wrong about me all along. just... another deluded young couple too infatuated and well before they knew what love really was. it always scares me, that she might actually have been wrong. another of my failures to her. love is more painful than rugby i can't take it. ___ i imagine home. the one that i don't have. i imagine a place where it's always between fall and winter. seattle maybe. it's quiet when you need it to be. it's never too bright, it doesn't glare, i hate glare. i can walk 90 minutes without breaking a sweat. i like to walk. driving stresses me. besides, to know a city you have to walk it. i've walked every city i've lived in, except LA, you don't walk LA. even still, i've walked all over parts of LA, if that counts. you sense the pace, the feel, the people of a city walking. on busses and trains. you see it moving past you. you are relaxed, so you spot signs and see people standing at traffic lights and walking besides you and the names on nametags. it means something to me to do this. Vienna. Prague. Brisbane. Haifa. Chicago. Seattle. Shanghai. Osaka. Beijing. walked walked walked. my toes bled in Sydney once. didn't care. ___ home only really begins when you know where all the streets lead. where you can find an all-day breakfast.

i'm like a dog, territorial. it's dreadful, i won't use the kitchen unless i pay the rent. when i have to move back home with my parents i confine myself to my room. rarely leave. i have space to receive guests in my own quarters. never ever answer the landline. try to be a ghost. in my own home, the imaginary concoction in my head, i see myself waking up on a sunday (home always happens on a sunday, when you have time to bask in it), it looks like new york this time, open widows with sills painted white because i like fresh air in the morning. it's a studio maybe. i put on a jacket and some jeans, both black. down the stairs, buy fresh bread. eggs. cheese. flowers, something cheap, like white daffodils or magnolia. come back home and make breakfast.
______ it's in the air. i mean it. home feels like adelaide air in the autumn. looks that way too. (i wonder if we ever really think anything's home but our childhood. wherever that went).

i see the end of the day too. where i hang my jacket when i get in. wifey/GF saying want some tea babe? me saying thanks babs and walking into the kitchen with sleeves rolled up, open collar, and tie loose. and she's brewing leaves because she knows i prefer them but am too lazy to do it myself i just throw the bag in and live with it. she has on a singlet and pyjama bottoms. i kiss the back of her neck (she has her hair up, which she apologizes for but i really don't mind at all).
___- why do you insist on listening to Wagner in the morning?
___- what?
___- this morning, i heard you... before work, i heard you go out for groceries, thanks for the flowers by the way, and Wagner while you ate.
___- the overture to Parsifal.
___- yes [she can recognize it by now]
___- it's magical. helps me believe in magic.
___- all this time, i still have no idea what you're talking about half the time. or if you're serious.
___- what's more serious than a miracle?
___- it's fine. i liked it. it's nice to wake up to that.
___- beats megadeath?
___- [she smiles] yes. definitely beats megadeath.

my parents' closets were always a mess. still are. mine are always organized. i suppose it's a new generation thing - love of clothes. cloak and bullet-proof-vest for the modern age, a well fitting shirt and trousers you paid too much money for. perhaps perhaps. my closet is meticulous, in my home this is, in my head. there are paintings. photographs here and there. not with me in it, just... stuff. gifts from friends.


in reality i am in summer's wednesday (far enough in to be exhausted of it, but still ages away from the weekend respite). there will be no rain to calm my nerves for too long yet. i have gained weight, i am fat. i have been sick for a week, the sound of fans and feel of bedsheets has settled me, but also, tired me in a different way. this cannot be home. this is not how it is in my head.

what am i writing?
sometimes i forget i am, and i look up one moment and find myself in front of my computer typing and i have no idea what i've written or what it's about. it's... scary. last i remember i was brushing my teeth. now i'm here. time is fragmented not continuous, that's the truth.

i'm here for now. i'm grateful to be. but... i need to find a way out. this is not where i need to be. just don't know where's... ___something that fits better.

(often times, when i come to and find myself writing, i suddenly feel exhausted and start falling asleep. like now.

i may decide in the morning this post sucks and delete it. so. sorry to waste your time. full refund and apologies, compliments of the writer available upon request. bests and bests.