Home again, home again

that's what I sing;

graciously, (It could have been).

My daddy's polishing his car with wax again;

the new Corolla.

I cringe

his words still bring me to tears-

(don't worry I get that I'm not what you wanted daddy,

but you could at least try.)

I can't stay here,

I tell my mother that

on this holiday of sorts

this cringing Monday when the suns too high.

We leave,

she and I

'we'll hunt adventure' she says

(I miss that spirit of hers)

we

start

and

end

all over the place

but princess-like we board the ferry.

Twenty minutes

eye

liner

and made up names

we watch the waves crash.

I haven't been here since I was a kid

this Island:

infant

torn from the mother-land

crying

to be reached out again.

I remember

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the back seat of the Honda while it rained;

I remember my father was with us.

I can't think about him,

he tears at my flesh

wounds fester

too long against me,

they always have.

We drive for hours

gypsy-like

we don't care where we go

(the last boat leaves at 2 a.m.

we don't care if we miss "his" dinner

he never was a good cook anyway.)

I drive

keeping close to the ocean,

I drive

like I did

(loving it)

before the accident

(I don't think about any of it,

I wont)

we stop off for lunch

and get the kind of food that we never could get on the main land.

I laugh

like I haven't laughed in months

and we tell stories about high school

-her days

and mine-

the football players

and teen pregnancies

the gritty

laugh about stuff

because we got through it

(the kind of get through it, where you have to laugh about it later!)

When we walk the beach

its the kind of walk that rejuvenates us.

Their is no wind

like the wind off of the sea.

The smell

of life

living

in the water

so far

from life lived on the land.

I breathe it in,

I take it with me

I keep it inside until I have to let it out;

it comes back to me

this air

clean,

it always comes back.

We talk

my mother and I;

we've always been good at being truthful

and the red-headed father and his gawky son give us the eye

(Insider's joke

-she bursts-

I never could resist a red head.)

I don't want to leave this paradise

this place

so far from home

but close enough that I can see

the tiny hill where I grew up.

I look through the land,

the freeway that will take us home

and I can see daddy over the stove;

little does he know that we're not coming home tonight.

On the ferry back

we stand on deck

(I love it on deck

but she hates the wind;

its too cold.)

She dares me to reach my hands out

(Titanic-style;

I never could resist a dare

so I do it,

but where's Jack Dawson when you really need him.)

Seattle burns

hot sun on the asphalt

and we drive through Fauntleroy to pass the time.

Its a thirty minute drive home

but I go slow

I'm not interested in that place anymore.

So much of myself is invested in that white house

so much of myself remains there;

I know every wall,

every creaky stair;

honestly it has never been my home here.

My home has always been with my mother,

even today

on this holiday of sorts,

this cringing Monday when the suns too high.