pause

i've been wandering aimlessly in my mind for the past few days. the icy winter has swivelled into a stop and melted into autumn or spring. my suitcases sprawled over the grey concrete continue to lie unpacked. the streets are dark and empty with solitude. a black disabled man on a motor chair crosses the light. i can hear the cries of the vicious crows spilling into the dusk. the moon throws a glistening chill to frame their pitch black feathers. i want to dissolve into this night and appear in another. i want to pave the crowded streets and elbow my way in.
where?
somewhere, anywhere with ghosts of my past and of my present. where the smell of the stampeded earth marries the smell of the sea. where the twists and turns of the winding roads stir my nausea, a nausea left behind from my childhood. a familiar nausea. when i feel it, i know i'm home..home, i hesitate to use it, that heavy word.
i want to pave the streets and cross familiar strangers. here all strangers are strange.
i want to pave the street from my grandmother's house to my other grandmother's house and duck my head to avoid the eyes and the hellos. i want to lie in bed and hear the church bells chime and the other church bells chime back in unison and drift back into sleep on the mattress that bores into my hips. i want to see my cousins and their children, i want to see if i've changed.
now i go back to the familiar, and suddenly, i'm the one who's strange.