Home

I remember when we use to look up to people as if they always knew all the right answers.

I came home today. I wish I put a lock on my door. I could see the light on in the room.

A quick whiff of air and I could feel cigarette smoke reach the back of my throat. An old mattress. McDonalds paper bags. Puff jackets. The television propped up on a dressing cabinet. My computer moved on the floor. Dirt ripped all over the floor. My brother stood in the middle of the room, while his pregnant girlfriend and some stranger sat on my bed.

"Just chill."
"Get the fuck out!"

I could hear my mom coming, the door creaked open but stopped midway due to clutter. "Jaype, hold on. Just hold on," she said with her overused desperate tone, I've heard so many times before. "This is just temporary."

"No! Who the fuck said you could put this fucking shit in my room. I leave for fucking two days, and you guys move your shit in like I don't even live here," I said. I could see my mom's face so close to mine. I could feel the tense skin on everyone's forehead.

My mom took me out of the room, my room, and told me that my sister had just moved in because she needed to evacuate her apartment immediately. I looked around the living room. My niece's 3 year old toys filled the space between me and the kitchen wall. Plastic containers filled with clothes, teddy bears, her Little Eisteins Drum kit, a broken home without walls stood between me and the television set. I could hear my brother's random stranger friend head for the front door and leave. My brother and his girlfriend wrapped the hallways and ran up the stairs to their room.

I could see my mom's whimpering eyes, I was killing her inside. "It's too hard, It's too hard already."

I went back into my room, slightly unzipped the zipper of the mattress and pulled it by both sides. My brother's 2 radios, 6 jackets in a pile, electric drill, every single thing I could grab; I took and threw it out on the street. The box full of papers, the bag of trailmix, his pair of sweats. All of it. It's on the street. I could feel the grasp of thick broken horded air gripping my throat. I'm home. This is home.

I left at 4pm on Thursday evening.

I could feel my face breathing behind my eyes.

I wonder if people really know how hard life can be.