Teenager. Green, gold. MUDs, EQ, and love.

And back, Red. White. Blue.

Blue? Me too. For some time.

Then school. A long, hard trawl. Success.

A new start, 3000 miles away. Precipitated changed. Planned.

Care. A new apartment, new friends, a beautiful town.

In love with this new place. Home.

102 houses. Super Bowl Sunday.

THE house.

A month later. My house.

Walk, touch, look. My house. Mine.

Independent, alone,

Success.

Comfort, love. Renovations. Make it mine.

CrossFit, health. 80lbs lost.

Love. The romantic kind.

10 years of isolation, unprepared.

Red flag.

Red flag.

RED FLAG.

Unprepared. Naive.

My home, my success, my power.

Targeted.

Love. With a fiction. Manipulated into believing fiction was truth.

Red flags. Everywhere.

That day, the names, the kitchens doors slamming.

Lost. Dazed. Confused.

Hands, shoulders, shook.

Water, was in the cup, now…

Dripping.

Years later.

Home. Mine. Changed.

Coerced into making it look and feel no longer MINE.

A move, fleeing. More fleeing. Mania of psych meds, unnoticed, or encouraged?

2 years, too much to think.

Suburbia gone. Country here.

Still mine but not mine.

Who am I?

A ghost.

Nothing.

Another new start. Back.

Snow.

A home. Beautiful home.

Mine and,

Not me.

Discomfort.

Pandemania.

Now. Missing.

What was mine. What was me.

My comfort, my home, my life, my independence.

What I worked for.

Discarded in the wake of evil.

Now, here. Be here now.

Sleeping in the brightness.

Awake in the dark.

Always cold.

Always.

So.

Cold.

Desolation, isolation, loss of hope.

Never mind happiness, but what about contentment?

Peace?

Homesick.

For the planned life I lived.

Homesick.

For the plans I made and discarded.

Trauma.

Homesick.

Will happiness come?

I am,

Who?

Lost.

Who am I?