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I fell in love with my husband, listening to him sing along to music as he did his work at night while I fell asleep in the other room. I had a more “normal” 9-5 style customer service job at that time, selling furniture at a (thankfully very slow) furniture store in Oakland.

I was moved to the San Francisco store after several months when the Oakland store closed and subsequently lost my job when it went entirely out of business with no notice several months later. I have no proof it was hiring me that cursed this entire company into going out of business, but I also have no evidence that isn’t what did it.

I had to travel on multiple buses to get to and from work. It was a lot of travel, computer time, and just time away from home in general, being overstimulated and dealing with strangers. So, I needed a lot of sleep to function. We didn’t get to spend as much time together as we would have liked, but I remember thinking that home would be anywhere I was with him.

I mainly remember him singing Home, by Edward Sharpe, and the Magnetic Zeros. Later, this became the song we refer to as “our song.” We didn’t have a traditional wedding reception, but this was the one we played and… sort of… danced to.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHomea place unseen, unknownfound broken lost, alonelying in a puddle of babbling hopeyou led me awaythis place we call homesafety and warmthwhether looking in from the outside or peering out from the fringes ofour off-beat lifethe sound of your working voice is the only home I'll never knowthe roost my claws detect the restthe sky I explore and fly soaring spiraling upward shoving trapped wingfulls down as I push and fightinto the light

I may have met my husband at a rough point, but I am almost grateful for that fact. I would never have met him if I had been delusionally content, sitting at my parents’ house, simply following their daily routine. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to marry him without interference.

K.B. Silver