Whenever I’m staying away from home, I always have trouble sleeping in a bed that’s not my own. The lack of familiarity, the distance from the places I know, and sometimes not even being around the people I share a house with is enough to make me feel homesick. My house is incredibly important to me and the three generations of people who inhabit it, including my Grandma, who migrated from India, and my sisters and parents.
Far, far away, nothing seemed right; nothing seemed the way it should be. I wrote this to express that feeling of being in the wrong place and not at home, because although we hate to admit it: Home is truly where the heart is.
Standing firmly:
porch, garden path,
weighing scales, and
an arched back.
It’s all a display
of surety
in a red, robed dressing gown.
Watching the shapes:
twisting, turning,
actors in a play.
Fingers on my scalp;
confusion and honesty,
from my uncut hair,
slide out.
My eyes on my mother,
flickering from behind a
twinning pair of specs.
Portrait and landscape, in
a home three generations strong.
Development can feel stagnant.
As I climb the stairs,
the air catches nervous breaths.
There’s an alarming sense of
security
in a home I’ve never left.
