Going home

The people are having job interviews or laughing with the person next to them or talking on the phone or simply eating alone. I sit with my bags in my hand wishing that home would come much sooner. I feel like the rain is pouring through me. I’m hollow and there’s nothing to patch the void. I should have known that things like this never worked. I did know it. I just didn’t listen to it. I feel like it’s a bug bite I keep itching and irritating. You know when you itch a bug bite so much it bleeds and then it doesn’t itch anymore- it just hurts? I feel like that’s what I’m doing. I’m itching and itching waiting for the relief of pain and not desire. Blood.

The fire that started

She asked me “What would you do if this caught on fire?!”

And I responded with a meek and anxious “I’d try to put it out”. In a pitiful tone that only comes from reprimanded child.

Everything about the unsettling situation escaladed further by this response as she ran the trash bag under cool water. I stood there shifting my feet back and forth as the smell of burning plastic over took the room. She pushed the bag back into the sink with force as she began to talk again.

“This could have burned the house down! This could have the whole kitchen completely engulfed in flames! What if I wasn’t here to stop this?!”

“I don’t know, Mom, I-I would have tried to put it out”

And in an instant everything about her demeanor changed.

“I want you to look at me, damn it, none of this means anything to me” as she motioned her hands through the air. “None of these things mean a damn thing to me in here, except you.”