They laid their secrets onto me and plopped themselves onto my cold tiled floor, criss-cross applesauce, to look at their reflections out of the window. Their newborn souls found answers in crevices of the room, where hidden sticky notes left friendly love letters to the next person who entered. A yellow one on the wall of the matching bathroom that said, “I love you, you got this!” A purple one on the mirrors of each other’s rooms complimented someone’s hair, and a pink one on the desks reminds people to eat dinner. The room’s color accent was plentiful of pastels, and they hung layers of string lights that command strips always failed to hold. They’ll learn quickly, though, that these walls aren't sticky. Lovers sneak their way through other roommates late at night, and sailor blue bed sheets are crinkled like cookies that just came out of the oven. They envelop each other like letters, words tattooed onto their skin. He leaves her in the morning, then the next day their bodies ebb and flow like the bedhead that occurred the night before.

Kids are dumb, the two of them scream and cry about unresolved problems, but come together at the end of the day despite them.

They bought a cotton candy carpet recently, fluffy and pink, and it sways like a dog’s fur when they pet it. They miss their childhood pets.

I’ve been empty since mid-march, but now music always plays within me and for that I am grateful. A record always spins lots of the time to surprise their loved ones. They paint their nails together and their significant others have become sidekicks in a television show made for them. They throw each other birthday parties with the same four, sometimes five, people in the room. They’re getting used to taking care of things other than themselves and push each other to be better. They need to take more care of their plants, its leaves are crumbling, and every now and then someone waters her without reminding the others they did so. They filled finished vodka bottles with fake flowers as decoration. Some nights, they lay on the cotton candy carpet with alcohol warm in their veins as they stare at the colorful ceiling, giggling, kissing, and singing. They’re young, and this is dreamlike. And the city lights look like crystals in the distance.

A home made by artists for artists, as the yellow brick road is postered along one of the walls. They carry each other when reality gets to them, and they scream and laugh around the room proclaiming like hopeless queens and kings that they are good enough. It’s reassurance, it’s the different colored pillows and blankets that give them something to believe in. They laid their secrets onto me and plopped themselves onto my cold tiled floor, criss-cross applesauce, to look at their reflections out of the window, set out to discover what’s on the other side.

A Welcome Letter From Our New Home