#yer?

If I could have it my way right now...

  For one, I would not be sick. It would be summer now, simply for the sake of time I need away from school.

My mother would be home, and I would be packing. I could feel the cool of the air conditioner as it gently blows my curtains up. They would be drawn back a bit to allow for some sunlight to cross my sky blue painted walls; everything suddenly becoming naturally colored. My television would be on, to some nostalgic childhood movie. Probably Disney. Probably having to do with the sea.

I'd walk out to my mom who had just finished cleaning and was sipping tea, talking on the phone excitedly. The entire house would have an air of freshness, as though it had just released a breath and the whisper of it found its way up to the ceiling. And it's the ceiling the sun makes its greatest impact on.

I would return to my room, with the door left open. Packing anything that would fit into my case, and even more so, simply because of an inexperienced mind. My mother would come in asking if I had forgotten anything; and I'd tell her I'd never be sure until I left anyway.

My packing would be complete, and I'd realize the clock suggested it was a little past noon. Stepping outside my house, feeling a wall of heat hitting me would help to confirm this. However, shy, gentle, breezes help to appease the effect, and in turn, I accept the pleasure of their company a little longer.

But eventually the heat rules over these breezes, so I return inside to my room. Looking around once more, I retrace memories with my fingers against walls that have survived years of expression. The cracks and fissures, color coatings, pinches from tacks or nails- all to display whatever it was that was in my mind at the time.

I would look at the objects placed specifically, in an order that signified their place in my universe; and see now how unrelated they were to me in this moment. Knowing then, that they had helped me to survive the years, but now different bonds were necessary. Placing a kiss on my finger to the wall, I would look once more to the ceiling.

Remembering then all the thoughts and feelings that hit me whenever I did so. The nights awake staring at it, as though answers lay within it. As though sunlight had been trapped within it, and the light was going to illuminate whatever being sought its illumination. Remembering music filled ears staring up at it, singing to it, echoes being sung back. How could I bear to remove the nocturne glowing stars that I had placed on it in place of a night light? My personal night sky, that never changed, even as the Earth did.

So I'd place my outfit of the next day on a chair, and ask my sister if she wanted to go out somewhere just for today.

She'd agree and we'd leave just to the town Wal-Mart for the excuse of buying seeds. But I'd know it was also just to pay my last visit to a place whose doors had opened to me and so many of my friends when there was nowhere else to go.

So we'd return home, to plant these seeds, just to see if they'd grow; and the sun would be setting. My town would smell of one large cook-out, and smoke would circulate openly as though the clouds had rained themselves down. I would hear the neighborhood kids, whom I didn't even know the names of, and they would be laughing, and running simply because they didn't know what else to do with the heat from the day.

And my mom would have cooked a large dinner because she knew it was her last chance at redeeming any bad meals she made in the past; and because knowing how I liked no onions in my beans signified a greater "I love you" than any hugs or kisses might.

And after dinner outside, twilight arrives as a dying chorus of children's songs and adults' adulation of them, and I would listen now only for the sound of the breeze. So timid in the daytime, it now traces my form; almost seductively, and instinctively knowing I'm powerless to it. My attention belonging fully with it, against the winking stars and against the insects' hum- because like a spirit, it allures me to a ceiling, a horizon that my eyes can't reach beyond but I know the breeze soars upon. Soaring upon, so that I might envy it all the more. It's been around too long to not know what it is that mankind desires.

So I would return inside, taking a shower to run a day's sweat down a drain. And I would lie in my bed, lying once more to the ceiling. And outside I would hear the breeze tapping on my windows so that I couldn't sleep. But the glowing stars would render it defeat.

And so I would wake up, to a disorganized palette of colors in the sky. I would hear the sound of televisions on in the house, and my mother and father talking quietly instead of arguing. I would make my bed simply to remember the feeling, and gather my bags after dressing myself entirely.