The Call Back Home

I live on the inside

Of the walls

Of this skull

And in the silent space

Of a skip

Of a beating heart’s pulse

In a kind of hollowness

So profound

It can only be experienced

As pure as the sensation

Of stepping into

A sound

That feels like

Home

Is in a room

That beats

With the lifeforce

Of what it means to exist

Contained

[In here]

In the moment that is all it takes

For the quiet whispers of a name

To reach into your ear

With a touch

So profound

It can only be as pure as

Love

As unconditional as it takes

To reach for a truth

So rare

In the deepest part

Of a beating heart

Where you found me

And touched me

In the dark

Where I have waited

To hear my name

Be called on

Long enough to be

Understood

For who I am

[In here]

Because out there—

In the invisible space

Where we run this human race—

I am just

Another face

Trying to keep up a smile

And keep with the pace

Of desperation

Not to fall

B e h i n d

And lose my place

…………....In line

The point at which I am clearly defined

And neatly packaged as always doing

“Fine, thank you”

Where I only stand as tall

As the distance between me and those

I am supposed to remain ahead of

So I must not let myself

Get too close

To you...

Are enough

To crush me

Under the weight

Of a feeling

Of what it feels like to have to feel (at all)

so small

In the eyes of another

Whose eyes you can see yourself in

When you look into the reflection of their

Rearview mirror…

As they pass you by

With a truth much closer than you can make sense of

How it just appeared

To shatter you

With the realization

I fell in love with

An illusion

Of what it would look like

To be able to love

Myself

For who I am

[In here]

Where I have waited forever

To feel like I have been found

In an embrace

Whose strength of emotion

Translates to

"You are home now”

If only it were so easy

For a soul to become unbound

To be saved from a lifetime of screaming

“LET ME OUT"

Clawing at the back of my eyes and

Up my throat

Dead set on escaping

Home –

The one I have always known

That broken cradle of thorns

Which was supposed to nurture and let me grow

Into a wild sunflower

Free to shine and live and love

But instead which imprisoned me

To eternal confinement

Of never feeling like enough

No matter where I go

I remain a shadow

Contained

[In here]

On the inside

Of a twist

Of a sorrowful fate

Where I bleed out the longer I wait

On you to come back

And take me away

When all I have ever truly wanted

Was for someone to (want to)

Stay

I suppose this means I must plant seeds

Of destiny

For flowers to grow

In places I have always felt pain so deep

They just became hollow

Where I have spent my life

Starving the fire

In a hearth which burns

With unfulfilled desire

Where my deepest darkest secrets

Yearn to be unlocked and freed

From the room in my heart

Where you found me

And called me towards a truth

That is mine and mine alone;

I let it consume me --

At last, I can exhale

For now I know

I have finally arrived

Home.

*This poem is the story of how I discovered my inner wounded child, a sexual abuse survivor of four-years-old, who had been locked inside of a room alone for hours in my earliest, and forgotten, childhood home -- and as a repressed memory in my subconscious for 20 years. It has taken a journey into my subconscious to find her, spurred by falling in love; the kind that hits you so deeply it awakens even the deepest shadow parts of your being and makes it worth bringing them to the light and healing them for a chance they might be seen and heard and loved the way they never were and always needed and deserved, and whom we tend to have a hard (or near impossible) time feeling capable of even acknowledging because it is so painful. All the pain was worth it to find the piece of home I have always missed and could never--but always tried to--find in something (or someone) external when, in fact, it had been buried inside of me all along: A piece of my heart calling for me to let her out of that room. Writing is how I have found I can set her free. Thank you for reading from the very bottom of my heart. That is where she lives and writes to the world to feel less alone, and hopefully can help others who resonate with her feel less alone too.