Adjusting

I

I have been struggling, fighting to begin, anything that is.  The litter boxes go for too long, the dishes pile up until my roommate refuses to scrub anymore.  I shudder at the thought of her not living here, my only reminder to be semi functional, to live a step above the existance of the animals.  I consume my days with photographs.  My desperate cry out to the world, look! This is what I am seeing.  See through my eyes, comment, prove to me I am not entirely alone.  I go through my days in a haze, waiting for anything, something to happen.  This can't be it, this can't be happening, I couldn't have crash landed here.

II

Ghost town rattles and shakes in a cold winter blow, snow piles up.  Today I'll find out if plowing exists for the few surviving inhabitants here, I suppose.  I am defeated and alone.  I make my way downstairs and heat a coffee cup, memories of New York City trail behind me, an invisible cloak around my body, dragging across the floor, brushing everything I touch.  How near I was - sings the sunlight on the faucet of the sink - to finally being in the one place I have searched for my whole life, my home.  How close I was – whimpers the curtains - to him, finally close enough that words on the telephone were confirmed by hugs and hip checks on the side walk.  How hard I fought – screams the porch screen door - to get back there, precisely there, when I realized I was wrong.  All gone, too tired to make the best of it, too fresh from my last odyssey to hope to get back again this time.  I curse their names on the kitchen floor, I'm 21 years old, how could they still do this to me!? I walk to the table and  touch the coffee cup to my lips, then set it back down. The cats need to be fed and the dog needs to go out. Wait, take a picture. Then I get up and begin another day.