home

When seven firetrucks, three ambulances, and a firehouse swathed through the fifth floor, I wished to move to Michigan. Live with my mother, even. Immediately, I sent myself there: working in a restaurant, paying debts, and eliminating insecurity independence has piled on. I choose what’s difficult more often than not. My bags are packed weeks before chapters close.

I worry about my safety everywhere but work. I could have moved safely, you know. To a small city in Michigan a car ride away from my chosen family. Yet, i’m here, in Chicago, willingly. Gladly if you ask me most days. Expecting the same results of myself as if i were submerged in the comforts of a home I once knew intimately. My expectations for myself are not out of reach, rather, too immediate. I’m driven, entrepreneurial, investigative, thoughtful, and trying to be increasingly present. Complacency will never house inside of me. It is outside my nature. 

A blister bubbled its way to the surface of my right thumb. My hair feels like straw this morning. Everything my thumb touches feels dull, near-virtual. Amidst the fire, i sloshed the fluid left and right within the fence of skin. Heat struck the digit too closely, and fluid was ushered in. The surface skin my be killed, but the body protected. All that is within me protects me.