I remember the first time I heard your voice. I can still remember telling you how soothing I found it, how much it calmed me. It still does, even though we’re strangers. You’re silent, but your words are still very much alive in me. You are my home, even though the door is locked and the lights are off.
It’s not a choice as much as it is a beautiful nagging that’s nearly impossible to ignore. But I’m locked out, left to wander, and I’ve found myself here. I know I left in a childish fit, and you locked the iron gate so tightly; you had to. So I was left out in the darkness, just me and the shadows that haunted me, the ones that led me away from you to begin with. You left me outside to face them. You wouldn’t let me lean on you to deal with them anymore.
You are my home because you are the place I choose to return to over and over again. The place that, even when painful, means the most. You are my home because you have made me who I am, whether or not you realized what you were doing. You are my home because you showed me the best kind of love there is.
You showed me real, genuine, love-you-so-much-it-hurts-and-changes-me-at-my-core love. It was a blissful combination of finally feeling alive mixed with the most painfully difficult challenge I never thought I’d have to deal with. I didn’t know I could ever feel so strongly that I’d end up there.
And yet, I still believe, that although that love may have been all of those challenging things, it was still unconditional, undeniable, and above all, beautiful. Miraculous. And that’s what keeps me at your door.
I’ve found that, at the end of the day, what’s hurt me the most has been thinking I wasn’t loved by the people I found myself inextricably bound to. In some cases, it was a biological attachment. But in our case, it was something that goes beyond that.
It’s as though the longing for acceptance from the people we are most devoted to, body or soul, is the most painful thing when not reciprocated, and yet, we care so much it can haunt us for our whole lives, if we let it. I wanted to let you know that the shadows in my life have been replaced. You exorcised them and your memory resides instead.
xxx
Just read this in the middle of the night with a pretty strong craving for a second cup of coffee for today (or maybe not, since it's 18 minutes into the next day) for no known reason. Haven't been hit in the face by something this felicitous in awhile. Suddenly I feel exposed, yet thankful to have my exact feelings expressed in such beautiful words; lonely, though not quite alone knowing that I'm not the only one.
The words 'inextricably bound to' sound so much like a thick rope I try so hard to tie around you without your consent, naively hoping that in that way, I may be able to make you stay. Oh no, not even around you, but around your shadow which I willingly get haunted by everyday, because you have already left me behind. And I can't even make out your silhouette now. That's how far you have gone.
I don't know how long it will take for me to be home again. I don't even know if I'll ever be able to go home again. I don't know what the future might bring. I don't know how much longer I can last. I don't know how much longer you intend to leave me wandering in darkness.
All I know is, I'm fighting to stay strong because what you've done has made me perpetually homesick. And deep down inside, I know it's not going to to go away until the day I'm home again. I have no explanation to make you understand why, because I don't even have an answer for myself. What do you mean by why? There is no why.
"You are my home because you are the place I choose to return to over and over again.
The place that, even when painful, means the most."
The place that, even when painful, means the most."
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