of homes & houses | a poem
sometimes, even the people you treated as homes will only ever recognise you as a tenant — welcomed, but finitely.
there will come a day when they will want to let you go — to take your place & make more room for others who are more worthy — so when that day comes, you need to be okay with that.
continue to build your homes elsewhere.
take your collected baggage and let them rest in a home who will see you as permanent returner.
where there will always be room for improvement, but never any for doubt.
never any for crippling anxiety at 3am,
wondering what words you let slip out of your mouth
while you were ‘too’… something.
wondering what that ‘something’ was.
wondering if your absence stirs even the slightest of calamities in their minds
when their silence is a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to your already-shaken heart —
suddenly it’s 6:30am, you haven’t slept a wink, because all you’ve been doing is checking where you last messed it up, so you can fix it.
you have to be the one who fixes it.
you’ve been settling for so long, you’ve forgotten how it feels like to have someone welcome you in, as scared as you are.
you deserve a home that acts like one.
you deserve a home that looks for you in your darkness with their left hand outstretched and a lit candle on their right, so that they could always lead you back to where you feel safe.
or at least, keep you company while you are too scared to move.
you deserve to feel equal to whoever else loves that home, that you matter just as much as any other visitor.
no fighting for your spot in their premises — a true home will make space for you.
no matter how unstable you are.
no matter how hurt,
how repulsive,
how broken, you are.
your new home will still view you as lovely even after you’ve let them listen to your loudest ghosts.
your new home will lend you their heart on your hard days so that theirs could carry that heavy weight on your chest too.
your new home will remind you, again, what it means to be accepted, regardless.
your new home will be a home.
because you deserve a home, not a damned house:
superficial & practical in some sort of a convenient mix.
cold, devoid of feeling, uncertain and ambivalent.
just four walls and a non-existent roof –
didn’t you hear? security sold separately?
so go. leave the houses that treat you like a tenant:
disposable. inferior. foreign.
and find your home.
do yourself a favour and find your home.
because you are worth so much more.
