coming home makes me think too much.
my best work is born from realities
i spend my days trying to outrun.
i run until i forget,
until it softens enough
to feel like distance.
but i come back
and everything remembers me.
nothing left,
it just waited.
⸻
i used to think leaving would fix it.
that a new space,
a new home,
would mean a new version of me.
but that’s not how it works.
i break into tears
every time i walk through that door.
because it’s never felt like home.
just somewhere i’ve had to be.
⸻
i crave routine.
i crave closeness.
i crave waking up
and the tea is already steeping,
or coming home
to something warm on the stove.
or being the one cooking,
moving through a kitchen
that feels like mine.
i picture everything in its place.
a couch that’s been lived in.
my dirty socks in the corner,
not where they belong
but still part of it.
crooked picture frames.
artwork from friends.
a home i’m proud of.
a home that invites.
just a place that holds me
the way i’ve been trying to hold everything else.
⸻
because where i come from
there’s violence.
it’s dingy,
falling in on itself.
you don’t wake up to smiles.
you check the lock twice.
you step outside already guarded.
you can be neighborly
but never open.
you sleep light.
rats at night.
roaches that aren’t yours
but still find their way in.
the smell never really leaves.
and no one teaches you how to leave.
how to save.
how to build.
you don’t even know
there are other ways to live.
⸻
i can see it everywhere.
in the dents in the walls.
the scratches on the couch.
in the orange cup i drank from.
in my mother’s eyes.
i see it in the birds
that fly past the 16th floor.
in the crows that come to visit.
in the smell in the house.
in the fluorescent lights
my mother and i both complain about
but keep buying anyway.
i see it in the wet footprints
that follow me out of the shower.
in the corner of the kitchen
i refuse to touch.
i see it in the door
that used to be my room.
and in the space
that acts as my room now.
i see it in the tone
we speak to each other in.
and even when i say
i hate this apartment
i know
it’s not the apartment.
it’s what was built inside of it.
⸻
and it’s not that it lacked love.
it just didn’t look like
what i saw on tv.
⸻
it was mostly just
me and her.
i was made self sufficient
before i understood what that meant.
if i had a question
i learned to sit with it
until it answered itself.
you assess.
you observe.
you figure it out.
on your own.
if johnny has five apples
and eats three
then two are left
not because someone taught you
but because you had to learn
how to get there alone
what i learn in school
has to stick
because there’s no one at home
to ask twice
no one to walk me through it
just to make sure i understand
you have to know what’s left
you have to know the math
and i’ve always known it
i just never understood
the importance of a home
no one sitting across from me
at the kitchen table
asking me
if johnny really has two apples
⸻
and still
i crave being taught.
being sat down with.
someone walking me through it
instead of expecting me
to already know.
i crave telling someone about my day
at the table.
but we never ate like that.
we were always in separate rooms,
watching separate things,
living separate lives.
together,
but not really.
⸻
i just want something
to care for me.
the way my grandmother’s home did.
where comfort wasn’t something
i had to earn.
where love wasn’t quiet
or conditional.
⸻
the center of attention
that learned how to disappear.
taught to dim my light.
and now i’m scared
that even if i build a home
i won’t show up in it.
that i’ll shrink
inside something
i prayed for.
⸻
because a roof over your head
is not a home.
it’s just shelter.
⸻
i don’t want to hear
that i don’t reach out.
who calls me.
i don’t want to cry in silence
and pretend everything is fine
for people who don’t see
what this place does to me.
i don’t want to keep editing myself
just to exist somewhere
i didn’t build.
⸻
how do i hold it all at once
the awareness
that i can’t unlearn
the evolution
that doesn’t let me fit
where i used to
the distance
between who i was
and what i’m becoming
the fear
that i’ll carry it with me
no matter where i go
and the longing
for something i’ve never had
but somehow still recognize
⸻
here i sit
with my reality
in my reality
unable to run
forced to face it
to live in it
to figure out
how to make my circumstance
a home
how to find myself in it
⸻
when there’s nowhere left to go
you stare at your four walls
you revisit
you revise
you relive
you rethink
you reprise
but you can never redo
⸻
and when the running stops
and reality remembers you
how do i hold it all at once
⸻
the answer is
you don’t
you find the silver lining
and try to figure it out
no home looks the same
and it’s up to you
to build it
the way you envision it
⸻