See those leaves up there? Bein’ all golden and still under some blue sky? I do. They’re not actually there, and in fact may be some amalgamation of photos and distorted recollections, but I still see them.

Some basement underneath those leaves. School. Smells like paint. Not exactly high-art but hey, it’s the “fun” class. Walked down the street one time- mid-afternoon in September. Inane small-talk with some older kid who listened to vaguely the same sort of irate teenage-angsty metal I was just getting over. Ended up being better friends with his little brother three years later. Weird. But there we were, leaves rattling in the wind across the street while we marked up the side of a hardware store. Six years ago. Still there- ripped off Microsoft Office clipart blown-up on a wall, our names immortalized below them in what could probably be considered copyright infringement. Don’t know how many other bodies even notice it anymore, but I do. Grin and read the names every time I see ‘em.

…There’s a heat to the sun coming off the afternoon sky. It’s apparent after stepping off a bus ripe with the smell of diesel and chitlins tired from school, quiet on their way home. But I step out, onto pavement, and it’s all the same to me. Grass is still green, maybe the tree out front has lost it’s leaves already but, eh. The dogs bark. They’re retarded like that. But we love ‘em. You see ‘em? I see ‘em.

It gets colder. Golden brown lying dead on the ground, under an equally dead sky. Maybe it was growing under that weather, not thinking it was “sad” like art conditions everyone to, but grey skies and cold fall weather feel like home. Feels like waking up early enough that Dad isn’t home from walking his gun yet, playing Tribes in an excited haze all morning because I have the winning ability to wake up before my brother.

Some late evening. It’s dark out, it’s a little early for such tomfoolery but so it is. Clearly the summer is over. There’s no doubt school tomorrow. Same bodies parked in the same chairs, same actions going on on television. It’d be on late, I’d get locked off to bed and then what’s a kid to do? Radio, bitches. Wave of the future. Laying straight up, headphones on, still feeling like I’m “up” and out in the living room. Can you hear it? I still do. If you need a glimpse: Helps Both Ways. Mogwai.  Nostalgia for my American tradition from a group of Brits. Ironic.

Working evenings, you can see it dim outside. Puddles grow in the parking lot outside the florescent cart-corral, gaze out at it on my way to move small colorful objects around a large, colorful building. On some masochistic level one can enjoy it- don’t have to worry about anybody but you, the task is simple enough and… For awhile, there was that one. Didn’t think anyone could be so giddy with half a sentence, it was adorable. And innocent. Leaving early, but not before it’s dark and brisk out- football season, mind you- to find a receipt taped to my window with the proper change amount circled with entirely too many arrows on it. I still see it.

I like to believe, sometimes, that if only the geographical entities that these things occurred in were still legally “home” to me, everything would be alright. Like the other normal kids who can still “go home” in a physical sense. But those things above? They can’t be repeated. It’s hard to accept- and I still don’t half the time- but physically, home “was”.

Home is in a memory. And I can live with that, because I still see it.

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