House is gone.
No warning. No goodbye. Just flame,
like it was trying to erase something.
I came back anyway.
Stood in the dirt where my bedroom used to be.
Where the floor creaked under secrets I never said out loud.
Where the walls held things I thought I was done feeling.
Never really talked about that place.
Not the way it smelled like wet socks and cheap candles.
Not the dent in the wall from when I lost it at sixteen.
Not the way it held me
when no one else knew how.
I acted like it was just a house.
Four walls and a roof, nothing poetic.
But now it’s gone
and every memory feels louder.
The corner where I used to sit in the dark
I remember it now like it never left me.
The chipped tile in the bathroom,
the peeling paint in the hallway,
the silence that felt like a friend sometimes.
It’s wild,
how something can mean nothing
until it’s ashes.
I’m supposed to be grown now.
Supposed to carry on,
shoulders squared, jaw set.
But I stood there,
in smoke and ruin,
and I felt like a kid again
not weak, just cracked open.
I won’t rebuild it.
Can’t.
But I’ll keep it all with me.
Even the broken parts.
Especially the broken parts.
They made me.
And maybe I’ll never talk about it right.
But I’ll never forget.
Not now.
Not after fire taught me
how heavy memory really is.
