Home

It was winter nights and starry skies and the smell of smoke and snow angels and forts and the gap underneath the porch, fleeting whiskers and a stripey tail, so many strays I lost count. It was the song of full-throated bullfrogs and tiny peepers, deafening in the curtain of summer air, hidden in our red rest fenced defunct pool that I never even swam in. It was that little hole and tiny creek (or I fancied it one) where, regular, always, water would gurgle forth from I knew not where--the well?--to drain, like clockwork, even in winter. It was an icy pond we skated on in our boots, slipping and laughing and falling with rosy cheeks and bright button eyes, gasping when my foot went through into chilly swamp and then limping home, laughing, laughing.

It was Butterscotch, the ragdoll cat I loved, I loved. She had beautiful blue eyes and a smart gaze, loved to be carried around and petted and crooned over. Her bottle-brush hot chocolate tail, cream and butter patched coat, dark ears, fur so soft I buried my face in it, warm and musky and alive. I loved her. I watched her leave. I won't forget.

It was the quiet solitude of the winter forest, snow hissing into the ground around me, my arms outstretched, my face to God, the trees reaching up with me, spinning, spinning it felt like. The air was so cold it stung your nose, cold and clear and clean, like nothing else I've found yet. It was those smiles because this was home, this was where I belonged, this was me. Pewter cottonball sky, innumerable flakes, the crunching of new snow.

It was the seaport, crushed shells instead of gravel crunching underfoot, the tang of salt in the air, tall, creaking ships,

oh lord,

the people. Everywhere, always. Ones who watched me grow and smiled at me, ones who gave and gave and gave and never asked anything in return. Ones who cared like I was one of their own. I loved,
I loved,
I loved,
I loved.
Always, everything, everyone, from my big blue house with the cherry tree out front to the forest tall and brooding and hidden and free to the faces the friends the laughs the games the school the teachers the strays the roads the snow the bus the fields the crooked lamp post the rutted driveway the fruit trees the berries the sky the things I loved the things I lost the things I learned the dreams I made the friends I held the years I treasure.


I love, I love, I love, I love.


Preston.