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it feels like i never left this time... cats sleeping in that bar of sunlight on my livingroom carpet, dried herbs hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, my brothers skateboarding in the driveway. even though things are different: my dad has a beard now, our new puppy three times the size as when i left, the new houses sprung up like mushrooms across the street. but it still feels the same as before somehow.

my grandparents house in maryland is the same too. i walked through the bamboo grove in his backyard while it snowed today and smelled its soapy living scent, crawled in their dusty basement looking for board games from the sixties. but they are older, my grandfather's limp more pronounced, my grandmother's hands knotted like tree limbs. still not home.

come to think of it, it only feels like home when i'm with you, our legs wound in the sheets and my nose pressed in the hollow of your throat, breathing you in. your sheets, mine, the ones packed away in my closet in rhode island -- it really doesn't matter. with you in them, they're home.