Within the Walls

Home can be heaven

Home can be hell

Home can be purgatory

Or a place you can sell

Each room holds a memory

Some tragic and untold

But with time and reflection

They can loosen their hold

There’s the cupboard under the stairs

Small and barely four-foot-wide

The paint still chipping off the walls

Where you and your sisters used to hide

You look around your old bedroom

In a way you never did before

You see the washing basket in the corner

That you used to barricade the door

There is a wall filled in with plaster

From a hole made long ago

The story you now barely remember

And a scar you’ll never show

You stare at the family portrait

At the face you will never forget

He towers above the fireplace

A man full of anger and regret

As you walk out the door

You take one last look

At the house that never felt like home

The end of a chapter in your book

Home is a four-letter word

With a hundred different meanings

A place, a house, or a person

Or a building with floors and ceilings

It’s never perfect or easy

And it inevitably changes over time

But if the ones you love are near

There is no other feeling so sublime

You look at the man you chose

Standing in the house that you now own

With the children you both adore

A place where you will never feel alone

You walk through the front door

And throughout the house, you roam

Looking around at everything you cherish

And finally, feel the love of a true home.