Homeland

 Homeland

 I glance down at him. He is sleeping on the floor comfortably, wrapped in borrowed blankets, safe from the cold. He holds my attention, for it is almost like gazing into a mirror; a younger, healthier, less serious self. A person who only thinks of living for tomorrow. Of spreading wings wide and flying, escaping to make a better life.
 I turn my eyes again to the window. It is chilling, not because of the cold, but because of the people down below. Two hours since sunset, it has not quieted, nor will it ever quiet in that vast expanse that waits for me. I cannot leave. I cannot revisit that place.
 I remember him just hours ago, entreating eyes meeting mine, misty and lonesome. "I don't want to go home without you," my brother had whined, "I don't want to leave you," he protested, "I'll be alone". I scolded him, like I should, but my heart was breaking inside. If it weren't for the fact that I must be strong for him, my pent-up emotions would've spilled over, and the pain would have throbbed with every beat of my heart.
 It stayed there, that pain. For a long time, it has come to haunt me in the night, playing me with self-doubt as it does now. I scan the horizon; the city-scape that for some unknown reason I still don't call 'home'.
 He called it 'home', and I mistakenly still do. I can't understand what about it still prohibits me from referring to it as 'that place', but I have called it home since day one of my experience in hell. It's conflicted and depressing, but it's the truth. That place will still mistakenly slip out as 'home'.
 But why is it home? What could I have possibly gained there that I am not gaining here at this moment, to make it a bright marker in my mind instead of an insignificant smear on a foreign map? Perhaps because I was so young, I remember the aching in my chest, the late nights, and the heartbreaking realities more vividly? Maybe that is what I miss; at only twenty I have become an old person, with lost chances and words following behind me.
 I blink a few times, biting my freezing lips to give them feeling. I could close the window, but I don't want to. The sounds of the city fill my ears and keep out the disorganized memories. The sounds of that place.
 The sounds of that 'home'.
 I scan my room in the darkness; the shelves are stacked with different presents; the trinkets I have received as this 'me'. In this frail, frozen moment, I see them all as transient. They are worthless things, lacking the feelings and familiarity which I crave. Quietly, I cross the room and dig through a drawer until I reach the bottom. Things are scattered there; things I considered special enough to keep. I don't understand why I still have them. I finger my driver's license, useless for the time being. My full face stares at me, smiling till my eyes are hidden behind puffy lids. Pictures slide out from where they are tucked in the back cover of my passport. The little memories sting and soothe in the same complex moment. They are marked on the back in funny letters, each as confusing as the days and names they catalog. It's strange how quickly I have begun to forget them. Not out of anger or bitterness, but simply because I just have.
 Our experiences dictate our perspectives. Many would say I am being unfair, that I haven't understood properly, or that I am holding a grudge. I know all of this and I acknowledge that perhaps, 'that home' is not truly as bad as I remember it.
 I put everything away, standing and going to close the window. It shuts of the steady current of cold air, and I climb down from the sill and crawl into the covers next to him.
 In moments, my body begins tingling, a sensation of extreme heat suddenly washing over me. I take in a breath, light from asthma and temperature shock.
 As for now, I do not wish to give 'home' a second chance. Like a bird who has recently escaped its casement, I have flown as far away as I possibly can. This 'home' is not more comforting than that 'home', but this, this warmth beside my brother, this is the place my heart calls 'homeland'.


-Argentia Krystofel