You ask, "What's going home to visit your parents like for you nowadays?" Well-- I toe off my shoes under the arch of the back door. The dog barks up a racket at a stranger. The couches have moved and the old beds have been replaced. There's new paint on the walls. New photos hung too. My Mother presses kisses to my cheeks and to my forehead and shepherds me in; but her smile never quite reaches her eyes. And my Father takes my hand and shakes it; but he hasn't hugged me in years and I don't think he sees me as his anymore. I am left to wonder-- curled under the scratchy sheets and blankets of a bed too firm, when this place became so distinctly Not Home. Does everyone feel like this? Or is this a special kind of torment reserved for me and mine. "This is really hard on them, ya know?" "It's only been a couple of years." "Give them time. They'll come around." I don't know what to say to that. I'm sorry but you've read this wrong. I do not regret taking up my sword; or the wounds I've reaped and the fires I've sown. Everything I have lost being true to myself, has been replaced in multitudes with the softest of hands, and the most gentle of lips. When I say: "I love my family" I do not mean my blood.