I make home

I make home everywhere I go.

Each temporary residence, I bring a sense of coziness, a relaxed air. It follows me everywhere. This is the trait that lingers long after I've locked the door for the last time. It's the trait that causes friends to comment on how homey my 3-day-old apartment is. It's the way I make people feel comfortable enough to tell me their darkest secrets, their wildest, locked-away-tight dreams best reserved for the behind-eyelids cinema.

It's the curse that slits me open and bleeding on my off-white geometric Moroccan rug. Making home isn't a choice. It's who I am, how I am. It's intrinsic to my being. I can make you feel like you've known me all your life, and I can open you up like an oyster from the deep ocean blue.

Sometimes, very rarely, I'll make my home in someone else. In brittle bones and unreliable heartbeats. I'll allow my foundation to be tested. I'll suffer broken windows and leaky faucets. I'll continue to call the plumber until I realize it's not the sink that's the problem.

And then I'll walk around the empty rooms, trying to remember where that scratch in the hardwoods came from. Or the blemish on the coffee table. Or where my home went.

I'll wander the dark, unfamiliar hallways until the silence permeates my skin and leaves me chilled with the kind of cold no amount of scratchy sweaters can cure.

Maybe I exist to make homes out of houses.

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