Not Anymore My Home

Wrote this last December 2018

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I am slowly taking my pace, alone, in the dark road beneath the gloomy December skies. I have walked here a hundred times now yet today I could feel the breeze speaking to me that something peculiar is going on. Still walking, until I saw a long-haired, slender girl of white tees and gray pants, whose image is too familiar, yet I couldn’t see much for she had her face covered by her hands, I’ve seen this exact moment several times in my dreams but today I’m sure enough this is real– I think it’s real. The girl, with whom I have the same hair, hands, and figure, is weeping.

I can see in her heart a scar, no, it isn’t a scar, it’s an old wound still looking fresh, still hurting in which healing time is yet unknown, but I don’t even think time could heal it.

She picked up his handbag and rose from where he sat and walked through the door of the house she once called home. A home where when she was just too young, her father would carry her over his back every time he arrives from work, her mother would hold her hand so firmly while happily strolling here and about. It was once the home of a family filled with all-out grins; a family who enjoys watching movies at home together, or singing in karaoke, or enjoying each other’s company on a picnic, or on simple celebrations of little achievements at home. But it was just once called home; it was too early for it to end.

She still weeps. Each tear mirrors all her brokenness. She could always hear her parent’s fight while her siblings were out casting themselves away from sanity and getting intoxicated and high. They shut out of school. Her parents are on an on-going war with no end, six years, and counting. She does not even want to count off the days for it reminds her about how much time her family has wasted and how much all these troubles outweigh their good memories.

She remembered what her teacher said, “You have a psychologically broken family.” And she affirmed this on her mind again. They were in the same house but there existed two different worlds and when these two worlds meet there is nothing but a clash of differing gravity, or perhaps the house itself loses its gravity. Her father broke her vows and had another family, and her mom is totally strangled by this for years for having wasted the 26 years of marriage.

A home supposed to be filled with euphonies is today unlyrical, off-key, and screeching. She keeps on repeating the word home. Home. Home. Home. She does this several times until it loses its meaning. Home is nothing.

For the last time, I glance at the girl's face and fell astounded. I went out of the house. I ran with no destination at all. I thought Decembers were the best but it wasn’t. It only reminds me of how incomplete I am. I ran, I ran and I ran and stumbled.

I opened my eyes and realized that it was only a dream. I have been too strong, yet the unconscious side of me wrote in capitalized letters that I am not. I went out of my room, and for once I saw them complete: my family– my parents, siblings together… yet so cold. But in that coldness, I am hoping that heat could spark. Nevertheless, I could still feel their atmosphere of love towards me, of care and of warmth, that no matter how huge the havoc was, we still get to survive and breathe though it wasn’t the one that I am used to when I was young.

I went back to my room writing my hopes on blank pages and in my letters to Jesus and Santa– hoping that I could bring things back the way it used to be; hoping that this house will become my home, again. Underneath the gloomy December skies, I am still hoping.