There Is No Home Here

 There Is No Home Here

    I’ve been getting back home later and later this semester. It’s for the best really—the less and less time I spend in my apartment, the less face-time I have to spend with my roommate and other suitemates. Not that they really talk to me—I am always on the move, and they are always living their lives. They know they can exist there. I know I can’t.

    Last night was different, though. The four of us living in this apartment had an "understanding" that we could use each others’ occasional appliance or vacuum. We shared a space, what’s the harm in using an air fryer or a Keurig every now and again? When I saw my Target Essentials mug and my cup that I took from WU sitting on the counter the other day next to the sink amongst my roommates dishes, I didn’t think much of it. It was weird, but nothing enough to fuss over. Not enough to really bother me. It was just a mug. It was just a cup. I mean at least they had cleaned the mug.

    But as I just mentioned, last night was different. Sitting in the sink, in a brine of dirty soap water and food sediment from days ago was one of my sorority cups. And I KNOW I couldn’t have used it. I hadn’t been home enough to use it. And I know it wasn’t me because I wouldn’t have left it in the sink amongst the other junk that was in there. My letters, floating in that dirty water, haphazardly thrown in that dirty sink around used forks, plates, and a worn out Scrub Daddy.

    I was exasperated and tired. Not from the fact that I just got back from drinking, but it was just another reminder that I wasn’t at home. This wasn’t a home. And I’m reminded of that often—loose hair strung every where (I’m constantly plucking inches and inches of 2B hair out of my pillows, shoes, clothes, backpack, laundry), a roommate who doesn’t speak to me (let alone look at me). Soap, jewelry, amongst other miscellaneous things placed on my side of the bathroom sink, or my side of the shower, or my corner of the cabinet. I’m getting ready to make eggs and toast, and my eggs are missing. My purse is knocked off my bed and on the floor. From the other room I hear rummaging in my coin jar.

    That cup—my cup!—was in that dirty f*cking water. And I couldn’t help but imagine the apathy to that cup and the letters on it; white lips on that cup with my letters, drinking from that cup with my letters, and throwing it in the sink with my letters when they were done. Not to wash it, just to leave it there. Not worried if I was to see that cup with my letters, because to them it was just my cup…with some letters. It was just mine. 

    The worst part of all of this is that I feel so silly. I feel silly about getting angry at my cup sitting there in that disgusting soap water. And I want to give in to the naïve-benefit-of-the-doubt feeling—they don’t understand! To them it really is just my cup. Another thing of mine they can use. I won’t afford them that, though. Not after all the times that I didn’t use there cups, or move things around they left out, or cleaned up after them—the kitchen, the carpets, the sink, the shower, the living room, the spit, funk, and other bullsh*t I picked up. They do not care about my letters. My things. They don’t care about me being there. Because there is no home here. None.