A Letter

What if I have no home?

Since the age of nine

I’ve searched for a place of my own,

a refuge that overtime

would allow me to retreat from the world.

They say home is where the heart is,

but what if the foundation is cracked beyond repair,

too fragile to ever be a sanctuary.

What if, it’s too delicate to touch, too frail from wear and tear?

And each time it beats,

the sound shrinks more and more into the distance,

like the cold sound of footsteps walking away.

I’ve always imagined home to be

the smell of chocolate chip cookies

freshly baked,

the sizzling sweet sound of love floating within

its welcoming aroma, persuading me to stay.

Once I thought I found home in a touch,

that sent warmth into my soul.

It wrapped itself around me… so warm... so soft…

with a fleeting thought that I might finally belong.

And in an instant, it was gone.

Now a ghost of a memory

that whispers over my senses every time nostalgia wails.

I don’t know home.

But, I’ve searched for it in the murky eyes of men

glazed with a haze so thick, I could never find my way into them.

But their windowless eyes were only smoke and mirrors.

Maybe that’s what home will ever be for me.

Even now I sit alone,

in my New York City rental apartment

Never feeling quite at home

wondering how this poem might have been different

If I had actually found a home to go to.

Sincerely yours,

A Wanderer