Home

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.