House

I'm living in my parents house.

Well, it's mine now.

They're gone.

It doesn't feel like mine.

I'm not sure it's where I belong.

But it's where I am right now.

Every room is a juxtaposition of our different worlds.

My life. Their lives.

So different.

Me, alone.

The two of them, together.

Me, odd and awkwardly artistic.

My mom, country-cute with lace curtains framing every window

my step-dad with his frenzy of wires and antennas and satellite dishes;

indulgences in both his genius and his hobby.

The fireplace he painstakingly built

stone by stone by neatly placed and perfectly aligned stone

on which I now stack my art work

and hippie flowers in an old thermos bottle

next to a chunk of wood I just happen to like

and a spray bottle to give the canary

a bath.

The curtains are so not me.

They really aren't.

But I left them up because honestly

after nursing and burying two parents last winter

in addition to all the other stuff of life

that's rolled across and flattened me like a big effing truck this year

I just can't seem to get my foot up on that first rung

of the ladder

to take them down.

So I come home at night to this mish-mash of them and me

and I let my dog lick my dinner plate

and I stare at the piles of boxes that need to go to Goodwill

and the rooms that need to be emptied

and the walls that need to be painted

and the floors that need to be pulled up

the cupboards that need to be emptied

and the basement that I haven't stepped in for two months

because it's just full of more work to do

and I put on my fuzzy socks

I wrap up in my fleece blanket

let the cat crawl up on my lap

and decide it'll all get done.

Someday.

But not now.

Not now.