I can’t explain how badly I want to go back home sometimes but that home doesn’t exist anymore. The house is still there but my home is gone. The pink flowers on my bedroom wall have been painted over and the orange silky curtains have been taken down. The red carpet in the hallway. The view from the upstairs window that showed just the triangular roof of the house behind and the tops of the trees between our gardens. The elegantly carved stone swirls decorating the roof that I could only see when I swung to the highest point on my swing set. The patch of soil at the back of the garden where we buried our cat. The living room we danced in. The kitchen table by the window where dad served us little oven pizzas and chicken nuggets and where we would lay out the plastic tablecloth and paint or make cats and dogs out of plasticine. The cold porch where we kept our shoes and the hanging beads with little fabric elephants and bells on. My huge teddy bears and my cd player and my green iPod and my old laptop and the chaise-lounge from nan’s house and the fake plants. Mum and dad’s old wooden bedframe with carved flowers and patterns in the headboard.