Listen:

I've lost or let go of everything I've ever loved.

You grab my wrists and tell me I need to start feeling again, and I ask when

did I ever stop?

Early morning and my mom called- and quietly sobbing I told her I was coming

home.

*******

White on white and yellow candles. The room smells, tastes like hospital. Mom

glances awkwardly at my shoes and I remember to slip them off before walking upstairs, clumsily dropping my luggage on the floor, before collapsing ontothe kitchen counter, a blob of black hair caressing the glistening milk tiles like a river of tarnished silk. Mom strokes my head and smiles and pours we mug after mug of cafe au lait in the hopes of reviving me, stimulating my waning spirit, fostering a little appetite, whereas I find that I am reduced to one -word syllables, head nods and slight seizures, narrative voice getting a bit sluggish and all, referring to mom as mother and mum alternately, saying that the house looks lovely, referring to charming events that never happened, all the while still slipping into a British accent because that seems all that's left of my once supreme dignity and what I am good at besides the usual suck and hum of my own destroyed vocal chords and sex organs. Champange next time instead of this coffee mum? The return home is an illustrious event after all ... ritualized - new blood makes us feel fresh - out with the old and so on and so on sitting at the kitchen counter and mouthing warm thoughts while mumbling obscenities under my breath- immature enough to do so, but past my prime, soon wont even be, one step closer to, as if we were going somewhere?