I want to go home
but home isn’t there anymore.
I want to go home
where people know me
understand me
speak my language
where I don’t have to explain myself.
Where everything is not an effort
and details of life glide
on automatic pilot
while I think about important things.

I want to go home
but home isn’t there.
Someone else’s art adorns the walls,
their music fills the halls,
their children tumble in the grass.

I’m thousands of miles from home.
I have to create home once more
start new
in a raw house, boxes, barrels
strangers
names I can’t pronounce
words with different meanings.

Someday
this place will be home—
our pictures, our music, our children—
but not now
not yet.
I want to go home.

*On our 52nd move, after 5 months in transit…

 

©1997 Thrive


View the original print magazine where this article was first published.