When my mother dropped me off at the airport
She said, I hope that you find your home
This one is tired and bent at the edges
And it doesn't suit you well
I walked and flew and slept all across the universe
But then I remembered... I know where my home is
My home is walked into the paint-stained carpets of dorm hallways where we taught international students how to curse in English
My home is under the napkins in greasy spoon diner tables where my godfather winked across at me
It's somewhere between the white and the blue in the waves of the ocean
Inside one or both of my headphone earbuds
Under the bark of a eucalyptus tree
Inside the box of waxy crayons on my lap during road trips
Caught like a stone in the treads of the tire of the wood-sided Jeep my father gave me
Buried under a tree in the backyard, with the goldfish and the pet mice
In between the keys of my piano and the keys to my first dorm, first house
In the sunlight through the window panes of my room in San Fransisco
And hanging off the roof with the geckos in Indonesia
It's feeling scared in the school library and at senior prom and in empty alleyways
It's the empty park nine thousand miles away from my mother
Where I whispered to the birds that I wanted to go home
Because I knew no one else would listen.
It's in the scissors that gave me blisters
When I redecorated our house by hand
And the tears I hid from my brother
While I turned up the thermostat to warm his icy soul.
A lot of it is stuck on the roof of a hospital room
Staring up wishing to disappear
Some of it is in my father's bones
And his misty eyes when they started to show
Home is in my best friend's bed
We didn't have our health but at least we had each other
It's my favorite space between the top bunk and the bottom bunk
Where secrets hang like candle smoke
It's the words of a book I haven't written
And the pages of one I don't want read
It's here, it's now, it's etched on my skin
It's me, it's him, it's somewhere far ahead
I don't know what it looks like but I know it will be there.