sapphic

I think there is a tiny, invisible threshold somewhere in the time-space continuum that, when inadvertently crossed, transforms "home" into "my parents' house."

All around me there are messes that are not mine and smudges on the glass that I did not make. I don't know where they keep the cereal anymore. I've forgotten how many steps there are from the bed to the lamp. I bump into furniture that I learned to walk holding onto. The cats don't know me.

And then there is the difference between parental behavior on freshman year fall break and the junior year counterpart. They used to hover and cling as if storing me up for the winter. Tonight my mother is gone to a John Irving lecture and my father is working late.

I am here with the hostile cats and the foreign messes and the strange bed and breakfast that has replaced some semblance of home. I will toss and turn and try to clean at 2a.m. and then I will drive three hours to my own messes and wonder, stunned, at the swift umbilical break in time.