Home

I had never really thought of home very deeply before

It had sometimes been a fleeting subject

What was it?

What did it mean to me?

I hadn’t thought about that very deeply before

Now I have

Home

It doesn’t matter the time or distance

Home haunts

It watches over your shoulder as you venture away

It keeps a close eye on your clock

Ticking 

Then it strikes

It wraps it’s sneaky tendrils around your heart and squeezes until you can’t breathe

It eats you from the inside, tearing up everything

Home hurts

Any time you’re alone it takes and takes and takes

Until you have nothing left

But longing

Constantly on the edge of a dream

Warm air, familiar scents

Faint voices, hot food

Easy laughter, tender birdsong

Memories of a different time

Of liveliness

Of happiness

Of home

It takes your fear of change and twists it into a horrifying dark beast

It’s pulse thrums away at your dreams and thoughts

It feeds on your dark times and drinks from the tears in your eyes every night

It stifles every distraction like a tiny flame

If you aren’t thinking of it, it’s always there

Waiting

Stalking

Until it’s inside

Taking

Stealing

Feeding

The bitter tang it leaves on your tongue late every night

The needles it stabs into the backs of your eyes when you least expect it

A song

A story

A name

A voice

A laugh

Each pulls pieces of you away, bringing you home

Until you’re there

In every way but reality

Until you are no longer you

Until your life is no longer yours

Until the pain becomes normal

Until you’re a shell

Until you don’t know if your lungs can take another cry

Until you don’t know if your eyes will ever feel normal again

Until you don’t know if you will be able to force yourself out of bed the next morning

Until you don’t know anything at all

But home where the heart is

Home, bittersweet home

It’s just a place

A four letter word

So I hadn’t really thought about it that deeply before