the question of home

so much emphasis in my life these days on this

where is it what makes it who must be in it how do i envision it am i ready for it do i need it to be happy...

and on the issue of settling down

of settling. period.

something i wrote recently in an email at 2:30 in the morning in an exhaustion and emotion induced delirium:

"i think the best love is a kind of home in and of itself. it is something you can come back to"

i woke up the next morning and questioned if anything id said made sense.

maybe not. but that part did.

i think.

i am so tired but i can never fall asleep

i am so confused but i keep acting like im figuring things out

and i may not be ready for this thing called adulthood but its happening with or without me

Domestic
BY CARL PHILLIPS

If, when studying road atlases
while taking, as you call it, your
morning dump, you shout down to
me names like Miami City, Franconia,
Cancún, as places for you to take
me to from here, can I help it if

all I can think is things that are
stupid, like he loves me he loves me
not? I don’t think so. No more
than, some mornings, waking to your
hands around me, and remembering
these are the fingers, the hands I’ve

over and over given myself to, I can
stop myself from wondering does that
mean they’re the same I’ll grow
old with. Yesterday, in the cafe I
keep meaning to show you, I thought
this is how I’ll die maybe, alone,

somewhere too far away from wherever
you are then, my heart racing from
espresso and too many cigarettes,
my head down on the table’s cool
marble, and the ceiling fan turning
slowly above me, like fortune, the

part of fortune that’s half-wished-
for only—it did not seem the worst
way. I thought this is another of
those things I’m always forgetting
to tell you, or don’t choose to
tell you, or I tell you but only

in the same way, each morning, I
keep myself from saying too loud I
love you until the moment you flush
the toilet, then I say it, when the
rumble of water running down through
the house could mean anything: flood,

your feet descending the stairs any
moment; any moment the whole world,
all I want of the world, coming down.