Musings from an Old Phone #3 / by Rachel Chin

04/06/2017

Am I home

From my shared room to the ex-master bedroom to a shared bedroom in another country to my own bedroom in another flat to a couch back in the old flat.

I wonder about that.

Can someone who isn't homeless be home-less?

Is it where all my things are?

All my things are

Everywhere

Scattered over two cities

There's nowhere to put

Me

Oh yeah, sure fine, yeah put it there, I say,

What I mean is yes, carve out a piece of your life so that I can wiggle my way into the cavity and make it my own

And I will latch on and stay here until I am kicked out, if I am kicked out, when I am kicked out.

Even when I return to my own country, to the house I grew up in, on the streets I played on,

There's that same implacable feeling that I can stay here until I am kicked out, if I am kicked out, when I am kicked out,

Because there is no room for me

Not since I "moved away," moved to the couch across the straits.

I am a guest in my own house.

My room is now my brother's.

Here are my brother's things, here is his smell, here are his clothes, his books, his hair gel, his laptop.

I'm only back for a weekend, I can take his old room that no one sleeps in.

No biggie.

Cross the hall in my towel to my cupboard in my-his room for my clothes.

Fall asleep on pillows I don't know in a room I don't recognise in the dark.

That everlasting back ache.

I can sleep anywhere now

I sleep anywhere

Anywhere