At first, I am holding a burrito in my arms like a child. The contents are spilling out– chunky beef, thick globs of sour cream, orange rice falling all over my blackened arms– and I am desperately trying to cover the burrito with the tin foil that has slipped off. I get in a car with my brother. I hand him the burrito and beg him to fix it, fix it, fix it. Put the tin foil back on, please, please, my baby, my burrito...He puts the tin foil back on. I don’t know if he hands it back to me. All I know is that I need to get home. I need to get home. I need a home. I need to get home. Then, I am standing at the bus stop alone. As the bus pulls towards me, the boy I knew was gay all along comes up to me and tries to prevent me from climbing aboard. He blocks me completely with his wide, scantily clad body. I get very angry at him and push him aside. I just want to fucking get home. Stop trying to prevent me from getting home. I get on the bus. It seems much longer than usual. I don’t sit down, opting instead to stand and hold on to the bar. I want to get off. I try and push the doors and they aren’t opening. Fuck. I can’t get out.

I am suddenly stumbling into my house, wasted. Drunk. Fucked up. Whatever you want to call it. I am that. I am about to throw up. I find my bedroom, climb under my sheets, and pass out. The next morning, I wake up and go downstairs for breakfast. Everyone seems to have known that I was drunk the night before. Everyone is silent. A silent reprimand. It makes me feel even more ashamed than if they had yelled at me.

We all pile into the car. We have a Land or Range Rover. We drive down the hills of Peru. We pull up to a shoddy shack, Dad driving, me in the passenger’s seat, Mom and Oona in the back seat. We are all getting along fine. Everyone seems to like each other. Mom and Dad talk for a little, then we get out of the car to inspect a newly installed solar powered oven that is cooking a loaf of bread. The toothless native Peruvian woman, wearing bright pink, pale turquoise, and electric red, smiles at us and nods and points to the oven and smiles and nods and points to the oven and Mom looks at Dad and smiles and nods and points to the oven and Oona looks at Me and smiles and nods and points to the oven and

Then I’m at a house party with my two best friends. Everyone is there. But like I mean like everyone, she says on the phone to God knows who. We are all smoking hookah and standing in corners drinking from colorful cups and looking impressive and dark and weird. Kanye West is playing. He says, I fucked up and I know it, G. I guess it’s Bittersweet poetry. She turns to me and says, Bittersweet Bittersweet Bittersweet poetry poetry poetry. Turns away. Then all of a sudden, another girl doesn’t have her shirt on. She is extremely drunk. She is tripping around, her tiny pink nipples hardening as somebody opens a window. Disgusting. And not in a good way, I whisper to the two girls I grew up with. The girl seems to not mind that she is completely bare breasted. I can’t bear it anymore. My friend is sitting next to me and I motion to her to hand me a t-shirt. The girl passes out in my lap and I make attempts to cover her naked chest.

The party is over, I guess, and now Dad is leading me down a long path to his new house. The house is white, completely white, with a white picket fence. Inside, the house is big and light; there are huge bookshelves filled with colorful novels and a bunch of posters on the wall, as if he’d lived there for years. Hard to describe. My room is a long hallway, similar to the path leading up to the house. The kitchen is to the left of the living room. It is a kitchen-ette. Small. Kind of an area closed off by a little counter. Hard to describe. There is a woman sitting at a table smoking a cigarette and writing, or eating something, or else whittling at a piece or wood. She is dark and gypsy like, with dark brown hair pulled back into a bun, black and serious eyebrows. I say hello to her, and she says hello back, but maybe not. I have a good amount of bags full of my stuff, and I look around and tell my dad, "This is really nice!"

Houses, houses, a blurry, a flurry, of houses, houses. I am in my mother’s house. I am in my mother’s house. I was in my father’s house. I was in my brother’s house. Then I am in his house. There is an extremely long pathway of grey, gravelly rocks, that lead up to his house, a house entirely made of glass, a giant question mark that one can clearly see through. I sit on a tiny bench with his father, who has crossed his legs and is intently looking at a bright red sports car parked in front of him. I sit down next to him, and point to the car.

"I like your Maserati," I say, not really knowing if it is, in fact, a Maserati or not, but making a lucky guess.

"I know, it’s nice, but I only bought it for today so I could drive a business associate around in it," he replies, eyes still locked on the car.

Then he, his best friend, his mother, and his best friend’s hundred thousand siblings climb out of a car and run over to me and his father. His mother hugs me and says, "Welcome back, welcome back." His best friend clamors for a hug. Two of his best friend’s siblings point at my legs and say, "Ohmigod I’ve wanted those shorts for SO LONG!" I look down only to see my tattered old denim cut offs...

I am in the bathroom with his mother who has gained a good amount of weight and has no hair left, only sparse tufts of gray. She is standing in front of the mirror, fervently combing out the little strands she has.

"And I’m in so much pain!" She’s saying. "I have tuberculosis..."

"And did you contract cancer as well?" I ask, curious, my pale hands perched on the white porcelain sink, my shoulders up to my ears.

"Yes! Yes I did!" She furiously combs her hair.

He comes into the bathroom, and suddenly his mother is gone. It’s just me and him. He has short hair, a white t-shirt with neon accent, and is short. I hug him and say, " Do you want to talk? I think it’s time we talk." He answers me by laughing, grabbing me, and thrusting his hips into mine. Almost drunkenly, I stumble away from him and say, "No, no, no, not about that...."

Another house. Another boy’s house. It is big, old fashioned. A mansion, with high ceilings, wide open spaces, and two big glass doors that lead to a garden. The garden lies beneath a stream, the stream clear, cool, calm. The garden is comprised of little green, round plants. How does the water hold a living thing? I wonder. There are little stepping stones that lead to the other side of the stream, where he is standing. He wants me to come to the other side to be with him. I know that once I get to the other side, I will have my wildest dream come true, but I’m afraid to slip and fall on the rocks atop the stream. I take his hand and walk across the stepping stones. Did he stay on the other side with me or not?

I am sitting on the ground with someone. I look through the glass door only to see her. She is doing something with some male friends. At a weaving loom. Making fabric. Fixing a bike. I turn to the person I am sitting with, and growl, "I’m going to say something to her. I’m going to say something to her." I open the glass doors and hiss at her, "What are you doing here? I want you out. Get out." I close the doors. I see her mouth to her friends, "I hate Maxine. I want to kill her."

I’m running through the hallways of another house and it is so long, it is so long. I can’t fathom its length. It is so strange to me. Lining the walls are family portraits of us, what I thought we were, and what I thought we could be. Us sitting in together with a dog we have never owned. Us painted in the style of all of our favorites: Andy Warhol, (that was mine,) Degas, (your’s), Monet, (mine,) Picasso, (your’s). One is void of color. I touch it and it disintegrates to the floor, a gray pile of porridge.

I’m sitting on a cliff, suspended in the air. I look over to my father who is sitting next to me. He says, "Maxine. Do you want a piggy back ride across the cliff?" I am about to say, "But daddy, I’m too old for a piggy back ride!" When tears fill my eyes. I realize I am too old for a piggy back ride. I realize I am getting older, I am too heavy, I am heavy boots, I am filled with the heaviness of the real world, and I almost feel myself floating back down to earth. I am so heavy. My eyes feel heavy. I feel my lids falling and remember when Daddy used to tell me that the sandman from Secaucus, New Jersey, came to shake sand in my eyes and put me to sleep. I see the sandman, and he looks like Jack London.

"You know, the writer."

"Daddy?"

"Yes darling?"

"I don’t wanna grow up."

"Darling, you have to grow up."

"Daddy, I don’t want to move away to a new home."

"Darling, you must. Your life is just starting."

"Where is mommy?"

"I don’t know..."

"Daddy I’m scared..."

I float away from the cliff.

She looks wise and old. Dressed all in white, as if she were at a funeral. Long white robes. Holding something. An urn?

"A young lady."

I begin to cry, "Mommy, I can’t, I can’t do it. Take me up to the clouds."

"You need to go up to the clouds yourself, Maxine. It’s your time."

"It can’t be. It can’t be. Mom..." I begin to cry. I feel like a child.

She sweeps her hand across the land around her. "This is not your home anymore. You must move. You must move on with your life."

"How far away must I move?"

"Only 12.6 miles." She picks a piece of fluff from her robes and throws it into the sky, where it soars away.

"12.6?"

"Oh, excuse me, Maxine. I meant 1,260,000."

"That’s so far...will you miss me?" I ask, pensieve.

"It is your life now."

"But will you miss me?"

"Will I miss you..."

I feel myself getting light again. I am in front of a mirror in the clouds, alone. I am naked. Is this a house? Is this my house? I see myself in the mirror and am at first disgusted. I am fat as fuck. I look homeless. I look like I don’t have a house. This is disgusting. Then suddenly, a new light shines upon me and I see my mother, my father, and my sister sitting high up in the clouds together. They wave jovially, all smiling, holding hands. I feel hot, sticky tears blur my sight. I close my eyes and they feel like a million tons of water rushing down my pale cheeks. I feel light. I feel light. They will always be here. I will always have a home. In these clouds. Anywhere, I guess. I look up at the clouds where my family is still sitting, waving, wishing, smiling. I call up to them. I yell their names. I want to be with them, but they don’t hear me. They motion for me to go forth, through the clouds. I look back one more time. I walk forward to my new life. My new home.