Have You Seen My Home?

I’m searching for my home.

Barefoot, I walk amongst the path of stones,

The one, as a child, I had made with my heart still in the making,

Muscles strained; feet sore;  I don’t know which way I’m going.

Enveloped in the arms of the romantic wind,

Leaving kiss-like shivers across my skin,

I reach for the jacket Mom had bought me in a hurry,

I curse its impossibility to fit my body.

Mom had told me objects don’t shrink or grow,

The same way time can’t be fast nor slow,

Yet, I glance down to the smallness of the sweater I hold

And remember the way it used to shelter my body from the cold

Mom said I wouldn’t be a kid forever

That life goes by like a gray cloud and bad weather

But Mom didn’t say that childhood was meant to be cradled

Like my father coddled the little girl I was, uncertain yet nestled.

I’m searching for my home.

At three in the morning, I roam

Around the streets I used to chant

 Laughing in ways that adults can’t

I stand before the house in which I grew up.

Looking for a home but I see none.

My house is empty

But not in the way you think it might be

My house is filled with furniture we have yet to replace

And the delicate center piece my mom made with lace

Yet the fridge once decorated with watercolor and colored pencil artwork

Has now grown obnoxious with its bank statements and important meeting dates for work,

The bedroom walls once painted in a shade of pink I had chosen

Now, covered in white, had been forgotten,

Hidden from the eyes of maturing souls

My childhood has already started to mold.

 Its funny, is it not?

We’ve all been caught.

Running from the monsters under our bed

To running from the demons in our head.

We’re searching for our homes, are we not?

And I’m not talking about the piece of land our parents bought.

The roof over our heads or the foundation on which was built four walls

I’m talking about the smell of home that you can’t find nowhere else,

Not even in the newest collection of Coco Chanel,

I’m talking about your mother’s cooking

For the smell, the taste, the texture, you’ve be longing

Because nothing tastes better than the  comfort and the sense of belonging of home,

But do you know where is home?

Have you lost it?

In your locker, maybe in your coat pockets?

Has it run away?

Unless you were the one who decided not to stay?

Blindly walking the other way?

Have you hurt it?

Destroyed it?

Burnt it to the ground?

Released the hounds?

You may not have wanted to hold a gun

But what can you do the war had already begun?

I’m searching for my home.

I’m searching for a home,

A jacket to keep me warm.

I’m searching for my childhood

There are missing signs around the neighbourhood,

I’m searching for the child I’ve been,

The child I am within

Her name is Happy and she’s a good kid.

It wasn’t her decision to be killed.

Reviews

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

I loved the rhymes, and these two couplets really struck out:
"Mom had told me objects don’t shrink or grow,
The same way time can’t be fast nor slow,"
It has the ring of the simple but insightful wisdom that mothers teach, which we do not appreciate when we're young. And:
"Around the streets I used to chant
Laughing in ways that adults can’t"
Reminds me of my adolescence, we used to sneak out and drink whisky from the bottle.

The ending was a bit obscure and its hints at violence left me unsettled. i wish i knew a bit more about you, and the background of this poem.
But it was a lovely piece. full of regret, the loss of innocence, the need to be in touch with our inner child. there's rawness, but also shades of wisdom... wisdom is hope. so in my interpretation, this piece is not completely pessimistic either.

[Erika]

Thank you so much for the review!