When Home Isn’t Home Anymore

I remember when home was so easy to define.
When home was simply a house.
Four walls and a roof.
Home was my comfort, my blissful isolation.
Home was my mother’s cooking, it was the creaking of the floorboards, the cracks in the wall.
Home was the tall grass that surrounded me, feeding my isolation, my own little world.
But what happens when home doesn’t feel like home anymore?
When I broke down the walls, cut the grass down to nothing, and ran away,
Where was my home then?
Suddenly, it wasn’t just walls, it wasn’t just a roof.
Because when you can smell your own house, faint, yet distinct, you know it’s not a home anymore.
You’re just a guest, an outsider come to visit.
And that’s when home becomes more complicated.
But I don’t think home is supposed to be simple.
It’s not something we find, it’s something we create.
When I was living out of a suitcase, just passing through doors, and, walls, and cities, and arms,
Home was just a confusion.
An ambiguous, almost meaningless term.
I left my kingdom of isolation, and though my hand shook with every step I took,
It was the best decision I’ve ever made.
They say home is where the heart is,
But my heart’s all over the world.
You see, I don’t think home is simply one place.
Because home is so much more than that.
Home is my wandering soul, it’s a beating heart, and familiar eyes.
Home is in the ecstasy that runs through my veins when I embrace the ones I love.
It’s the pieces of myself that I left behind.
When I think of my barefoot summers, I am at home.
The comfort of a late-August breeze rushes back until I can feel it against my cheek.
I will always carry it with me, and that is home.
Every sweet memory, every hand I’ve held, holds a bit of my heart, a bit of my home.
Home is in that old suitcase. The one that saw the world with me.
It’s in the cities, the people, the moments I’ve fallen in love with.
Home is in the hearts I’ve touched,
In the ones who shaped me, molded me like clay into the person I’ve become,
The person I’m becoming.
Most importantly, home is a feeling.
It’s the nostalgia, but also the passing time.
Home is the feeling in my heart that tells me I’m on the right track.
Because I’ve found love in the wandering.
And there’s not a better feeling in the world,
Than the feeling of home.