This is the place where I scraped my knees and cleaned them with peroxide even when no one told me to and

This is the place where I planted new flowers and watered them every summer morning before the heat came like fog and watched then die and get buried with leaves in the fall, but I knew they had a good life so I said goodbye and

This is the place where I read all my books and where I watched movie marathons in the rain, clinging to characters who I just met and

This is where I baked Christmas cookies and dinners for my family and snuck down my creaky wooden steps in the night to get a snack or woke up before everyone else and sat on the back porch listening to the birds and watching the squirrels and admired the hostia that was coming in so strong and

This is the place I cried over my dead dog and dead grandmother and sat on the front steps in sunsets thinking of songs that made me miss everyone I loved but the cement cradled me until I decided to go inside and

This is the place I had my first kiss and laughed with my friends and cried with my friends and wrote bad poems for creative writing about my first kiss and fights and

This is the place I grew into a woman, a place that made me, a place that I memorized as home but is more like a family member than a location and something I'll try to bury in the back yard but even though it's warm out the ground won't give.

I'm so afraid to wake up in a new place to the walls asking me "who are you" and all I can say is that "the real me starts with 106 . . ."

While I'm half asleep on drives home I'll wonder why we're turning down the wrong street. I'll say the name out loud when asked what home is and I'll write it on pamphlets and school scholarships and then I'll do my half laugh and apologize.

Maybe some little girl will grow into the woman she's meant to be in this location, but the sad little girl in me doesn't want to share.