Mustang

The loneliness of being young is often forgotten,

left behind by adults who change in ways usually
not noticed until the change is concrete.
We become better at deluding ourselves
into believing we aren't as lonely
and we buy into the romantic notions
of youth,promised to us by pop culture,
the market capitalizing on the glory days
of coming of age.
Mustang means stray animals
in Spanish,I suppose
and that's what being in college is like.
I realise that home is a construct,
well,everything is,
but it's the only construct where
clothes smell of comfort (the fabric conditioner,you know?)
and potatoes and drumsticks are cooked in ground mustard,
rooms smell like dogs have been around the place,
it's never too late to catch a sunset in solitude
and it's never problematic to take a nap without worrying
about the wasted hours,
Home,with always enough,endless supply
of green tea and coffee stocked up in the larder.
I once read somewhere that home is a person
but that was young adult fiction,idealistic,
read owl-eyed at 4 in the morning,
(In my defence,I still really like YA)
I'd stayed up all night to chase away the mystery of teenage romance,
struggled to stay awake for school the next morning.
I'm twenty now and home is not a person to,me,
it is people,yes,but not always the same people
that I go back to.
When I first moved out of a place I'd lived in
almost
literally my entire life,my friend said
Home is creature comforts,
he was right,but I felt it was more,
it was nostalgia,it's a permanent abode
in imagination,
Memory
and more.
Maybe I'm just as destitute as the hostel cats
and campus dogs,
living on the leftover mercies of human beings,
getting by on the affection they anticipate.
 I watched people blur into each other's
movements,from the distance,on a grassy slope,
next to an oversized Labrador,Ash,
he recognised me even on days
I hid a sob fest behind a bathroom stall,
he soothed me with his presence,
 making the telltale red nose from crying ,vanish.
Does that mean I'm trying to be stronger?
I'm better at hiding my weaknesses now?
I don't know.
I wanted to be alone,get some fresh air,
clear my head,breathe,
go on a walk.
That's the recipe to feel better,
everyone says,
but it's in these moments
when you realise
how illusive totality is,
how impermanent home
or anything wholesome is.
Maybe being older is lonely too,
just being lonely around more people,
a far cry from going home to somewhere
you belong.
For now,I'll just roll down this grassy slope
and watch the sky become the grass become the
sky again,
till I'm dizzy and the blood rushes to my head
and I'm laughing so hard,I can't breathe.
I will try not to think about how itchy the grass is
and the bath that will entail as a result of this
spontaneous exercise in the spectacular now,
There are only moments in a day,
nothing more,nothing less.