I have no idea why I wrote this (I have an idea maybe but we are not going to talk about it)
What is home supposed to feel like? They say it’s warmth, a soft place to fall, but I only remember cold walls and the sound of silence screaming. I’ve had a house. I’ve had a room. But home? That word feels foreign like a lullaby in a language I was never taught to believe in. When people say “I want to go home,” I flinch. What do they mean? Why would they want to return to the place I’ve been trying to escape my whole life? They speak of home like it’s healing, a shelter, a sigh. But mine was a wound that never stopped bleeding, a place where love had conditions, and silence was punishment. I needed out. Because to stay was to shrink. To vanish. To become something small enough to be ignored. How do they not see? Or do they have something I never did? A voice that was heard, a hand that didn’t hurt, a room that didn’t echo with the sound of breaking? I wonder is something broken in me? Why does “home” sound like a threat instead of a promise? Maybe their walls never watched them fall apart. Maybe their ceilings never closed in like jaws. Maybe their doors weren’t traps dressed up as shelter. Mine were. Mine still are. And when I am dragged back, it feels like burial like breathing dirt instead of air. I am so afraid. I think I will never find a home the home they speak of with stars in their eyes. Because the place I come from is carved deep into me, a ghost that sleeps inside my skin. I try to outrun it, but it follows me everywhere, dragging chains through every hallway I enter. I want to leave. I want to run. But it's there, looming behind me, its breath against my neck. Whispering "You cannot leave." "You are mine." "You will carry me forever." And I am scared. I am so scared. I don’t want this curse. I don’t want this name, this memory, this ache. I want the kind of home that doesn’t rot me from the inside. But the scream is clawing out of my throat. My ears ring with my own voice crying out in silence "Save me. Save me. Save me." But no one hears. No one ever did. So I sink into the shadows of that house, into the echo of all the things I was never allowed to say, into the grave of what could have been home.
