Time tears away what I worked towards and nervously knead my knuckles against my knees for. And the trouble with time is you can’t run your fingers through it. You don’t feel it passing, but it does. 

Before I know any better or have time to clear my head, I’ve been home almost as long as I was gone.

But home feels like a different word now. Home feels like someplace I can stay for a minute or more, but I know it’s another station I can’t stay at for too long. Home feels like someplace I can remember fondly but only remember. Soon I’ll go to my city, maybe go to other people’s cities too, and have no trouble telling Home I’ve got to. And I won’t wonder how she is while I’m away. I’m starting to find that maybe I don’t like being anchored. Maybe it’s shameful. 

And memories. Memories always weigh me down. I can only move forward from here on out.

So I’ll take my twisted sidestreets and cityscapes I’d seen through sleepy eyes, and my rain soaked blue coat, my make up stained pillowcase, promises I turned into silences and scenery I swore that would save me, and all the strangers I met (and turned some into friends, unforgettable ones even), the smell of so much cigarette smoke (makes me sick with loneliness, now), crushed velvet curtains, unfamiliar ceilings and cold floors in my mornings, staring into stage lights, sound crackling through into clarity, one falling star over Birmingham, and so many nights spent unspeakably happy and sleepless, I’ll take them all and I’ll keep them, though, I’d rather tuck them away somewhere I can’t reach them anymore.

Why it hurts, I can’t say. Probably because it’s the most beautiful and memorable thing I’ve done in my nineteen-nearly-twenty years of life.

So how do I start again?

And when?