An Unholy Matrimony

And home is healing.
With its smell so familiar it could wrap you up in memories and never let you go.
With your footsteps on the floor you know you've been here before.

Home is hurting.
Wishing you could be back is the saddest part.
Hoping to run back in your parents arms when you're 700 miles away is like drowning out at sea and only wanting to be dry.

No chocolate on valentines day from dad.
No hug from mom when you've had a bad day.
No going over to your sister's when you just want to get away.
No dreaming with your brother in-law while sitting in the sun,
Later laughing at how absurd those stories really were, but also loving every moment.

Home is calling.
When all you can do is go from room to room in your head.
Walking around an antique store remember how you and mom did the same thing,
And for a moment thinking you'd see her when you turn the next corner.


Today feels like a prison, but hopefully tomorrow the bars will have been removed.
I always thought Tennessee was home and Texas was the place I wanted to get away from.
Turns out I was wrong.
Turns out I was right.

Home isn't a place, as cliché as this will be. (I think it's so cliché because it's true.)
But home is with the boxer in the backyard,
And the Ewok that licks too much,
The humid Christmas,
And the time spent on those green courts.

Home isn't a house, as hard as that was for me to learn. (Still learning.)
But the laughter that was unique to each person in it,
Along with the yells of the first name and the middle name that you so dreaded to hear,
It's sharing the bathroom with the 1/3 of me,
And giggling on my bed because she doesn't want to go to her own.

I thought this place was home because it's where nothing bad ever happened.
It's where I went every summer,
And the only place that had more kids than the street I grew up on, or maybe that was the memories,
Or maybe it was both.
It's the place that holds my grandparents,
And the place that holds the prettiest sunsets.
It's the place that holds the college I now go to. Maybe that's where I went wrong,
Not that going to college was the mistake, but that it breaks me.
Man does it break me. But man do I need it.
Breaking means mending and mending is healing.
I grow and I learn and its called living.

The alliance between me and this façade of a home could be detrimental.
The red string is wearing thin,
But today I'll mend it with duct tape.
And I'll remember that the key is remembering.
So I'll remember, I'll remember.