Paradise

Most days, I don’t miss home. I tend to live here in the moment, whether that’s the people in my scope or the tent in the middle of a desert. Lingering on the past doesn’t serve me or the people around me. It only complicates things.

But there are times where all I can remember is the way the sun fell on my face as I helped my father with the plow, or as I sat on the porch with my mother. When the breeze blows just right, I can almost smell the things that grow beneath the ground as their roots dig further into the ground.

And as much as I hate him, sometimes when he turns towards me, my home flashes behind my eyes. The maroon walls and the deep brown roof, the smell of my quilt after it had hung to dry on the line, and the way my father would put his arm around my mother and rest his hand on her hip.

I hate him all the more for that.