Kevin Stahl

Homesicko

This is the house I grew up in. It looks the same in summer as it does in winter. It looks the same today as it did in the mid-90s when my parents had it built. It looks the same as the other houses in the suburban development, the little differences visible only to the people who live inside them.

I go back and stay at this house once or twice a year, sleeping in the same bedroom, eating in the same kitchen, swimming in the same pool, driving around the same streets, taking a masochistic pleasure walking through my old memories:

I recreate the day after our first kiss, when I went to meet my (not yet) girlfriend on her lunch break. I spike my hair in the same bathroom mirror, I drive the same route to her work and arrive at the same time. I sit on the same spot of grass where we ate the lunch she made for us.

I park in front of the house my best friend from middle school used to live in. I walk a mile to the Little Cesar’s and sit against the fence behind the giant trash dumpster. It’s a different dumpster now, but it’s in the same spot as the old one. I wait there for our other friends to stop by.

I drive back to the dark corner of that out of the way subdivision we used to park the car to smoke. I turn off the lights and the engine and sit there listening to a few of the songs we used to play on repeat while I stare at the same yellow and black DEAD END sign.

I lose myself driving around, but remember my old curfew just in time and I race home. 11:59, speeding around the last corner in my subdivision, I still see our house glowing like a beacon in the cul-de-sac at the end of the road, just like it appears in this painting.