Come

// Rae Underberg

The creaks and cracks of an old home, but far less comfortable, far less cozy. Because the way relief
rushes through your veins at the first breath of homesmell doesn’t come to your body because you don’t
get to just leave and come back whenever you want to. Only when you dissociate. Which is like a homecoming.
But the metallic taste in your mouth kind of coming home. The shutters hanging from their hinges kind of
coming home. The way a squeaky cabinet can make you cry tears of joy, tears of longing, tears of being too
far gone from this place. Kind of coming home. The way that you avoid the stair that creaks underfoot because
it has borne too much weight and you are too much weight. The excess pulling at your bones, crumbling foundation.
And you ask, can I live here among these ruins?