Home is warm wood doors. Cherrywood like my family’s eyes. Dark oak like the floors peeking through heavy ornate rugs. Doorways closed shut against cooking scents that bask in the Texas air. Home is where you know how the doors open and how the floor creaks, but never why the doors stay closed. Doors protect precious things and keep those same things away from the wonder of the world. There were 5 locks on the front door of my childhood home, every one intended to do something the others couldn’t. Our home was meant to encase me in the essence of nurture, so I created a mosaic from the pieces of my family.

     I can tell my brother isn’t meant to have just one home. He brings out the best in people, made from bright kind eyes and quick smiles. He looks to the horizon and paces in locked rooms. He creeps out into the night and burns away, only returning for fear of the angry burn of paternal cry. I remember the fading tightness of his hugs, once never letting go and now, resting for only a moment before looking for his next victory. I can feel warm laughter tightening my guts and heat blooming in my face from grinning gunning reality, we survived together, special one. You have always been the best of us, seeking summers not present in the world, too good, too pure.

     I can tell my mother carries pain within her, it jolts inside, along with the daisies. It is cube shaped, bundled up, like familiar moving boxes. She looks to us, for comfort and solace, for confirmation that her trade was solid, to make sure life hadn’t swindled her. She traded with life like those ladies at the market, cajoling, whining, and seething against an exasperated salesman. I remember the air changing when she was laughing, sometimes at my father's jokes, but mostly at her own. I am most grateful for the sense of humor she passed down to me. Humor is what marks you as a survivor, being able to force air out of your lungs to laugh when you could barely inhale.

     I can tell my father is tired. Tired, like an old car pushed along unknown roads by a driver with no map and no guidance. Tired, like my brother’s bike, resting on the ground and watching him burn with life. Tired from appearing in countless diaspora poems. When will I see you for you, instead of the caricature you turned into? Will it be when I see you in myself? I remember the way you declared my abnormality, when child-me would delve into books with abandon and refuse to grind myself down into A pluses. It's a bookmark for me now, to mark where I learned that normality is trauma and I was born to shape a new normal with your relentless blood in my veins.

     I remember when I learned that anger flares, attention is trapped but respect escapes. I remember seeing my father in my raw voice, watching it fill the room, rising like heat. It rises in Texas, where loneliness crops up by the highway and anxiety slithers in the tall grass. Two pairs of twin eyes bore into each other, I wonder if he was shocked or dismayed to see this part of himself in me. I wonder if he could see himself or if he was blinded by a familiar stranger. My father is a kaleidoscope of a man, present but shimmering and making it impossible to predict which color will bloom in front of you next. When a child wants attention they’ll do anything to get it, so I watched anger bloom and respect wither. Standing in a field of red poppies, waiting for opium clouds to come and blow me away.

     Home means open, earnest faces. trying their best to comfort you, make sure you’re comfortable. Hima’s soft face at the door when I come home. Roshan’s rough cheeks when he kisses me goodbye. Samyam’s scattering eyes and sinewy arms, growing growing gone. Paranjaya’s doe eyes ready to absorb, never shying away from my bomb blasts. Mmeso’s mirror eyes, flashing between wisdom and wonder and giving always exactly the right frequency. Gracie’s shoulders, arms, hands giving love like precious treasure and hiding behind twisted roots.

     Where I come from, you belong to everyone - that’s why you are free.