A Sketch of My Return to Our House

Say (All I Need) by Tlipps


Cold and dark, this house is on life support. Just days earlier, we, with a small group of loved ones, left it ablaze with the fruits of our progress: the anthems of strong voices, the security of mended bridges, the comfort of a dinner table. Our photo album is a song book; a repertoire of blended frequencies, unique to the times we spent and where we spent them. We flipped the pages deep into the night- until the cars had to be moved off of the street. With increasing worry, they left the two of us to prepare for the next morning. The warmth they had collaborated on lingered like the water from a quickly recessing wave finishing its life on the shore. Soon it will vanish, leaving our ankles sunken even deeper in the sand.

You slept on a your hair, just one year in length. I forced myself to stay up, knowing I would never be able to wake up at 4:30am. The room buzzed all night. All night felt like one sip of coffee, but was no where near as bitter. All night, I had witnessed a life worth living- vindication for anguish and helplessness endured. Overcome by exhaustion, my thoughts were a swirl of colors and gratefulness. Being compounded by its own gravity, the vortex pulled every element in to one point, one conclusion: peace.

The time between waking you and the hospital is an abyss. It seems as though you simply morphed from the sweet, glowing lips of morning to the sterile hospital gown and tears of unstoppable terror on the pre-op bed.

That was six days ago. Now, I walk into our living room, in the greyness of dusk. The floorboards creek and ache with arthritis. Like cold hands grabbing colder metal, my eyes look upon the aftermath of our last night at home; the end of one recovery. With the heat turned down and the lights kept off, it houses tarnished guitar strings, evidence of breakfasts, and blankets longing to insulate. We live here. We live HERE.

It will be a while before a day is planned around these rooms. But we live here.

Ghosts taunt my swimming head while I stand here but these ghosts will become our goal. I have faith that these memories will be the tape stretched across a track, bringing glory and joy as we march towards them. They will not be the matador's cape.