I'm Coming Home

Oh, hello, old house

I'm coming home again

 

Stepping out of my car

and onto the curb

brings back floods of memories

that rush like a river down my

throat and leave

an uncomfortable lake to

roll around in my stomach

 

Everything's exactly as I left it.

 

The door's broken, still,

I had bent the knob from the inside,

trying so hard to break it off.

 

To either escape or trap myself forever

I'm not sure.

 

The hallway's as dark as

ever, extending well beyond the

light or my eyes can imagine

It's amazing how the hallway

seems untouched,

it still smells of paint

and cheap alcohol,

yet there's not an inch of

dust anywhere,

as if people have never

really stopped walking down the

hallway.

 

I open the first door on my right,

and the smell clubs in the head.

A mix of blood, sweat, tears and

paint.  Paint most of all

So much paint I can't breathe

So much paint not an inch of the

white walls are visible.  Canvases

hang from the ceiling in solid colors

No real images anywhere.

 

Most are tattered and wrinkled

Only the black and most dark survive

 

There's a depth there I can't even

comprehend.

 

Next room I go to is a furnace.

So hot and so loud

I can't decide whether to plug

my ears or wipe

my sweat stained brow.

In the midst of the fire

lies a wooden bench

How it hasn't

burned by now I guess

I'll never know.

I can remember this is the

room I stayed in

the most,

completely covering my body

in sweat,

beating my hands on the bench

until I had splinters in my

fingernails,

burning hair from every part of

my body

trying so desperately to spark myself

into something else.

 

Because maybe if I was different

I could leave this house.

 

Another door leads to

a room completely made of

glass.  Hard, unbreakable glass

that overlooks a busy

city street.

I'd come here to watch people

react with one another in ways

I couldn't handle.

I'd just look at them

and they'd look back, concern

striking their face, knocking on

the glass and just looking.  Nothing.

 

I would kiss the glass in front of them.

It was all I could give them.

 

The final room is where I set

my bag down.  One where I

can relax.  Not because I'm

happy, but maybe because I'm

comfortable.  It's the room that

smells most like me.  The room

my eyes are permanently adjusted to.

I know this room in the most

intimate way.

In it lies a bed with a wool blanket.

In front of the bed a white screen.

Projecting the movies I

wrote and starred in.  The ones

about heartbreak.  The one's I've

re-lived so many times I refuse to

beleive in anything else.

 

I close my eyes here

letting the smells and sights

and darkness enfold me like a blanket.

Behind me the movie screams two

lines:

 

"Is this the way it ends?

With my hands holding your broken heart?"