The Home I Carry With Me

9:09. And I am suddenly taken back sixteen years to stained-white shutters, and a one-and-half story the sky is painted after. Like laying on the sweet petrichor of post-summer rain, stained knees toward the heavens, callused heels scuffed on earth rich red below, and eyes tickling tops of trees to wispy clouds above. That blue. A soft memory of home.

“9:09 Pennoyer Street!” we’d all eagerly exclaim twice-a-day in clockwork.

9:09. Home, and an acknowledgement thereof. One whistle away from the nearest train track, two cars down from the blurry traffic of lights, three pages close to the favored school library, and four dives to the next body of water. Home.

While the color of blue may have shifted in weight of leaving and subtracted mailbox numbers in location of changing, my home remains light in the love I’ve carried with me.