First Place for the Third Time

I'm back now.  This near empty living room with my brown velor couch in the corner.  That dying stereo I bought with my first job, and these many memories.  My sheets acting as curtains and hanging in the window.  I feel seventeen, like I just moved out for the first time.  I've found my world map in the cupboard.  I used to stand on the couch and dream about foreign countries, running my fingers over the paper.  Coloured concepts I had yet to discover.

Here now are my books.  Stashed in drawers.  The ones I've loved and wished to hand out in stations begging, "Read it, please.  It's worth it!"  The ones I found in yard-sale dive piles and meant to read, but haven't yet.  The ones with spines that look good stacked on my bookshelf.

The tap still drips.  The "harvest gold" fridge still runs loud.  There's a fresh old wine stain on my area rug.  I need to dust things off, go grocery shopping, put my pictures back on the walls.  My bath is deep, hot and perfectly sloped.  I don't think I've ever appreciated that before.

Everything has a memory.  The lights strung across the ceiling.  My binders of burnt c.d.s.  The notes tucked in corners of boxes I packed two years ago.  Everything pointing to a time, a phase, a person.  This will be another stretch.  When I was here, a hardware girl, blogging and turning twenty-four.

And now my eyes are closing.  Tomorrow after work I will clear some of those boxes I hauled up from the basement off the kitchen floor.  Tonight I will curl up on this brown velor couch beneath my worn comforter and dream of foreign familiarity.