Home?

It’s not

the house

we’ve filled

with love,

laughter,

tears,

joy, grief

and myriad

memories,

though

it is

our

favorite

place

to be.

Home

is not

a place;

for though

the walls

fall,

or

we find

ourselves

in other

places

somehow

we always

feel

at home –

loved,

cherished

respected,

joy-filled.

My home

is in you

yours,

in me

for

our love

is what

makes

a house,

any house,

feel like home

to us,

thus,

home is

wherever

in the world

we are,

together.

The walls reek

of old paint,

tinted decades ago.

white

and grey.

always white and grey.

gloominess hangs in the air.

Permanently.

Dust gathers in the corners,

settles on the bloody carpet.

consumes it.

No one bothers to

clean it.

Decayed wooden furniture,

dead tables and chairs

devoured by termites,

eaten alive.

Stale water,

drips from the roof

onto the wet marble floor.

Old paintings

of gods and goddesses,

of folks and cities

far away

hang on the walls

by rusty nails,

smelling of nostalgia

and sadness.

Hanging

since forever.

Kitchen shelves

filled with china,

intricate designs,

with cracks in the middle.

Dirty clothes in the cupboard.

No space for new ones.

Shattered hearts

lie around

like broken vases.

Irreversibly broken.

Put together

by glue and tape.

People who live here,

have lived here

for centuries.

Family.

So different from

each other.

So, so different.

Like cut-outs

from old, musty newspapers,

glued together

in a cheap collage.

Like seven different songs,

playing all at once.

Like all the colours of a prism

mixed together to form a

pale, blurry white.

Family.

they smile at me,

I smile at them.

People I call family.

strangers I call friends.

A broken house I call

Home.

Stars swim and drown

in the midnight depths of your eyes.

I drag that sky like the ocean, searching to find.

But you’re lost beneath a shivering tide.

Stranded inside a shape of flesh and vice.

And like the ocean, it’s so deep.

Surrender soon gives way to sleep.

But haunted and tangled are my dreams.

Because your best interest I failed to keep.

This haunted is so ill-defined;

a malady of the mind

you catch in the corners of your eye,

plagued to relive the nightmares till you die.

Centripetal strain condemns living to repeat.

Dead on our feet, solace is our sleep.

But sleep is breached, and there comes a shriek

rising hot behind the prison of gritted teeth.

These broken hands oft fail to reach.

No more can pretense mar my speech.

My fault wrought everything you are.

Every wound, every scar. Sinking softly into self,

eternities from my touch. Near but so far.

And my mind itches to kill the life support.

But murder is too heavy a weight.

So I leave you to fight your incorporeal

civil war, and soldier on despite your hate.

The tide is black now, a gentle decay.

Long to scream it all away.

But vocal cords break and mute you’re left,

with darkness cold to paint your breath.

An empty shell, victim to theft.

With a heart the color of slow death.

And starving strides and deepening clefts.

Perhaps more room to fit inside.

But shallow is this fallow pain,

a gallow walk of weary strain.

Pulls you soft unto the earth,

craving now a steeled rebirth

to bring you home again.

The prism spins in dizzied time.

Killing self with words sublime.

Hands pressed hard to the surface,

suspended in the murky

waters of your own mind.

My lullaby you fail to hear.

Pleas for freedom miss your ear.

Bleeding and spangled you hang your head

from the other side of the mirror.

#fiction

I’ve been dead for a long time.

I was a star that time forgot.

Until your fingers glided across my burnt foundation, cracking my soul wide open…

...while breathing life back into me.

I lost my home the day she died.

I now wake up everyday to an empty bed, an unbearably still day, a life that has paused. After 45 years of loving and living with me, was it fair to shift homes now?

What happens to the garden she had nurtured with so much love? Will it wilt and dry up, waiting for her, as I do?

What about our plans to clean out the attic? Will the clutter die with the house, forever uncleared? (Yeah, we were a bit lazy there…)

Will the study remain unpapered? Such plans we had, the number of wallpapers we sifted through, the final selection, now lying unclaimed at the store.

I’ve decided - best to shift homes, or rather houses. Home no longer exists, only a shell with the soul gone.

Better to start afresh in a new house, a smaller one perhaps, far away from the memories of the only home I have ever known.

And yet, can I really leave behind the memories? The scent of her which pervades the very walls. The sweet humming that I can still hear in my weaker moments.

All the years that went into building my home, they are here - in my heart, in my head.

Home still exists - here - if I will let it. Accept that she’s gone but has left behind a wealth of a lifetime, enshrined in what I still call my home.

She loved her bicycle. The rusty pink exterior. The thick rubber tires. The basket, woven with daisies from three summers ago, the summer of her first love. It was her purpose, her set of brilliant angel wings. With every push of the petal she flew higher, up up and away.

It was dark and misting, the droplets settling on her skin. She knew those two factors were a dangerous combination, but she lived for danger. There was a thrill to taking a risk, especially one in disguise.

And it was so beautiful. Quiet. Away from the screams.

More shouldn'ts. She shouldn't have been biking in the middle of the road, against the ghost that the flow of traffic had left. She shouldn't have been looking at the stars, bright and twinkling, because she didn't see the headlights, bright and not-so-twinkly.

As she slammed against the car's front, blunt force rattling her organs, her last thought was bittersweet, sad with a hint of a smile.

She wouldn't be coming home.

A house is a building, it’s as simple as that.

it has bedrooms, bathroooms, and kitchen.

You may live there, sleep there, eat there.

But are you at home there?

A home is “Come on in, we have food.”

It’s where you go when you don’t know what to do.

There you are safe, there you are loved.

somtimes a home is your house, and sometimes it’s not.

A home can be loud, a home can be quiet.

a safe place to hide from all the riots.

At home you can laugh, cry, say hello and goodbye.

Home can clean, messy, or somewhere in between.

Home is where you can talk, and people aren’t mean.

Home is dog hair all over the floor,

and people coming through the door.

Home is where you can dress down,

Home is where you can act like a clown.

Home is where you can be yourself,

Be like you would in front of nobody else.

Home is for family dinner,

or watching the game to see who is the winner.

Home is for making popcorn with freinds,

Having fun long after the day ends.

For a house can be a home,

where you call your freinds on a phone.

But it’s not the house.

It’s not the dog, beds, stairs, or couch.

It’s the people you are with day-to-day.

The ones who make you want to run and play.

A house is a building as simple as that.

But it can more, oh so much more than that.

Nobody has a home

Miss. Grim would always tell us

What even is a home?

Is it like this one?

There are so many bunk beds that I get confused

Does a home have so many faces?

How do you remember who is who?

And do homes have smelly kids too?

How about stuffed animal guts?

Are they all over the floors too?

Miss. Grim, do you have a home?

Or is this your home too?

Yes Charlie, although my home is different

You see Charlie, my home and your home are different things

Do you like your home, Charlie?

I don't know what a home is, but I do like my friends

Can you show me your home, Miss. Grim?

Is it big?

Oh, and do you also have smelly children living in it?

Caharlie, maybe you should go play with Your friends for a while...

Miss. Grim has some grim things to do.

Multicolored light reflections pulsated on Sam’s windshield. Orange and yellow from the cityscape. Blue and red from the police. Sirens blared and the police yelled for her to pull over, but Sam turned up the electronic beat from the speaker. Tears flowed freely from her eyes. She had to make a choice: keep driving and escape to a life of luxury. Or return home to see her son and daughter for a final time. If she did that, the cops would arrest her shortly after.

She thought, screw it.

She turned left and floored the gas pedal in her car. Sam was headed to her paradise.