Your memories visit me seldom
these days
        but they're just as dear
(when they do)
warm and removed
             like these still May mornings on the coast that are gorgeous, innocent
                           and new
  ... do you remember the absolutely absurd things we used to laugh at?

The remote control looks different
Television has 20 new channels
The side table is not on the right side of the long bench anymore
Her favorite mug is now a vase
Her spoon and fork are not in the drawer
No cookie crisps in the cupboard
No kimchi in the fridge
Things were different from when she still lived here
Things were different from three years ago

Everyone is soundly sleeping upstairs
Her old room is now her cousin's
Her old bed is now her sister's
She will sleep on the floor
But she couldn't find the mattresses
She doesn't know where to look
But she looks everywhere
She couldn't find it
Exhaustion and frustration seeps in
“Where are the mattresses?"
She screams in her head
Tears start streaming down her cheeks

She wants to sleep now
She wants to rest
She wants to feel home.
But she doesn't. She couldn't.
She doesn't know where the sheets are
She couldn't find where the sheets are.

“I don't live here anymore. This is not home."

I keep flipping through
photo albums,
smiling fondly at pictures
of me taking my first steps,
playing in delight,
holding hands
once in a while.
I keep flipping and they seem
to come to life;
the colors glaring,
the rush of the sounds
and smell
embrace me for comfort,
it seems like yesterday
I stood there,
smiling a toothy smile,
thinking this was the best day
of my life.
It feels good to flip through
photo albums,
they never fray and serve
to remind.

It will be alright.

I needed a piece of paper and a pen to write this down.

I needed to smell, and touch the words as they pour out of my soul through my numb thin long fingers.
I needed to see my thoughts, no, my emotions, transform into ink and sit there on paper still.
I can imagine the scripture, the outcome, with a shaky handwriting and words so stressed and stressful that the ink is visible on the other paper side.
Yet, what’s written is unreadable.
I can’t see my own words.

I close my eyes hard and my hands harder. My small palms form two fists in which my numb thin long fingers snuggle into one another and only then their numbness seizes to dissolve.
My frustration is eating my numbness alive, and I do not know which side to take.

The paper starts turning blue.
A teardrop mates with the deep blue ink and they make an ocean out of the small piece of paper, or perhaps, a night sky.
One of my thin long fingers, that are no longer numb, escapes the group hug and feels my left wet cheek.

I open my eyes. There is no ocean. There is no night sky. There is no paper. But I can see my own words.