No Place Like Home

Leave the key under the door mat.

I am not lost. I have only gone away for awhile to find myself. Although, I would very much prefer to be lost than to be aware of my nonexistence. Out here, I conjure thoughts that behave like ghosts who don’t know they’re dead. Misery echoes within my skull and resonates through the rest of my broken bones. My sleepy eyes refuse to shut. I can only sit in silence as I haunt my own death bed.

My senses are numb. I feel nothing anymore. Back in the comfort of my room, I would have wanted this to happen. I would have given anything to be devoid of everything. Now that I am, I wish I knew where wonder rests her head. Desperate for life, I sink my fingers into my palms until I see red. Somehow, watching blood stain my hands turns my sanity into a keepsake. I am still human.

Pain fixates me on the realization that I don’t belong here. The trees beckon me to let go; so I swallow every emotion and every memory that has ever clothed me with guilt, and I walk again. I remember telling you not to wait for me because I said I wasn’t coming home, but, darling, I was wrong. I hope you’re still sitting on the steps of our front porch. I hope the lights are still on and that they’re shining as bright as the silver moon.

The path I am to take, I see, but I do not understand the way. Why is it that as I draw closer to the horizon the sun begins to sink? Am I not welcome back? Have I sailed too far out to place my feet on the shores of stability? I need you to tell me that my fear is okay. Tell me that I don’t have to be afraid. Promise me things will change.

Chasing this burning desire to regain life has left me with so many cuts from the thorns of the bushes I have gone through. The confusion of who I need to be has crippled me, but, finally, I find peace among the wildflowers. There is a scent of familiar discomfort in the air, but the overbearing weight of the world’s torment leaves my shoulders and is replaced with warmth. The need to hide disappears.

I quiver at the sight of you, and you stare at me the way you did when you saw me cry for the first time. And for the first time in my life, the voices I have created in my head, the voices which have plagued me with self-perpetuated mental destruction, die out. There is a lack of color here; but there is no place like home for breaking down.

-Nathan