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take your ball.

are you willing to take your ball and go home? home to the ghosts that haunt you? where being alone is quieter than out and about, still lonely? the home where no one waits? where younger versions of you scream like starving stray cats? you can hear them from a block away. it’s so embarrassing. but the neighbors say nothing; so it doesn’t matter.

you go home to where the mess is. where the only helping hands are the ones you grow out of the stubs they guillotined. many years ago, you held them out, but it was the wrong time and the wrong place (and they were in no mood) so the hands came off swiftly. ceremoniously or unceremoniously, you were rid of them, either way.

sometimes you wonder how it might feel if you still had them. you were so young back then. imagine what it might be like to walk around with all original parts? maybe like a brand-new barbie, jewelry complete with both pairs of shoes. maybe you’d still have that baby-soft skin you molted out of a hundred times by now. so itchy! and every time, you had to burn the old diary and begin writing anew, lest you make an accidental dwelling in that cold, blue-gray bathwater.

it was easier, for many years, to learn the new way: hands for giving, hands forgiving. until one day, you took those hands, picked up that ball and walked the other way. you might have hesitated for half a second but no one seemed to notice. that’s how you know it was right. they didn’t come running. no major upsets. and now it’s just you: sink empty, laundry folded, doors locked, lights out, windows wide open to the breeze. it’s twilight. the sun is gone. still too light for the stars but you don’t need them anymore. you’re already home.