take it easy

—

Adrienne Rich, from On Lies, Secrets & Silence (via violentwavesofemotion)

it’s time to go home again. i have been tearing pieces of paper like flower petals. this time it will be good. this time it will be bad. good, bad, good, bad, good,

“are you still coming home?” my mother’s voice sounds distant. old. static in the line. is that my home, i want to ask. am i even invited or am i intruding. aren’t you doing better without my footprints. i don’t want to answer about my love life and my failed expectations and my tried-my-best-ness. at the same time i want to tell you absolutely everything about my love life, and how it felt seeing her again and how her hair still smells like that and how sometimes my trying actually leads to doing and how i’m setting better, more specific expectations, and i’m actually meeting them. 

i tear the paper. in one future you’re proud of me. pass the wine. in the next, you’re sighing. is that what you’re doing? pass the wine. in some we’re not drinking. in some we’re not talking. in some, i come back and the house is warm and garlic is in the air and we’re all laughing. in some, i come back, and everything we haven’t said is rotting in the air.

“are you coming home?” she asks. i close my eyes. 

“I did not stop thinking about you, I would like to tell you so much I would like to write that I would like to come back, that I miss you and that I think, but I do not seek you Do not even write to you I do not know how you are You do not have any plans? You smiled today, what did you dream, that you went out, where you go, you have dreams, you have eaten, I would like to be able to look for you, but I do not have the strength, and you do not even have it, and then let’s wait in vain, and let’s think about it. And remember that I think you do not know, but I’m living you every day, that I’m writing about you, and remember that looking and thinking are two different things, and I’m thinking of you, but I’m not looking for you. ”