(no subject)
May. 26th, 2011 07:48 pmThe Ache
This is the house I grew up in
Sixteen years
Other people live in it now
They don’t know its history
But that doesn’t matter
I’ve got a new house
And it’s comfortable
Adequate
So why do I want to walk up those front steps
Open the door
Reclaim this house?
Why do I feel like without this house
I’ll always feel homeless?
How can a building mean so much?
Just two-by-fours and drywall
A giant, hollow, inanimate object
“If these walls could talk…” we say
But they can’t
They’re just walls
And they’re mute by nature
Mute to everyone
(Mute to everyone but the ones who know them
Who knew them)
Why do we miss these things?
It’s not the superiority of the building
It’s the memories it holds
But buildings don’t hold memories
We do
We still have the memories without the building
But we value it anyway
Why do I still long for home?
How can that building hold it prisoner?
Why can’t it let it go?
(But I’m the one who needs to let go
Aren’t I?)
They say “home is where the heart is”
But they’re wrong
Or they just never tell you
That your heart can divide
Into so many pieces
So that no matter where you go
A part of you will always long
For somewhere else
They don’t tell you that a piece of you
Gets left in the past
Where you can’t retrieve it
Don’t tell you about the ache
That never goes away
It doesn’t matter what happens
What you do
Where you go
You can stay in that house
Until it crumbles around you
And you’ll still be aching
Because somewhere between childhood and adulthood
A piece of your heart breaks off
Stays behind
And you can never get it back
You think if you go back to that building
That first home
You can retrieve it
But a building’s just a building
And hearts don’t come when they’re called
So you learn to live with aching
With homesickness
Forever
It’s called growing up
This is the house I grew up in
Sixteen years
Other people live in it now
They don’t know its history
But that doesn’t matter
I’ve got a new house
And it’s comfortable
Adequate
So why do I want to walk up those front steps
Open the door
Reclaim this house?
Why do I feel like without this house
I’ll always feel homeless?
How can a building mean so much?
Just two-by-fours and drywall
A giant, hollow, inanimate object
“If these walls could talk…” we say
But they can’t
They’re just walls
And they’re mute by nature
Mute to everyone
(Mute to everyone but the ones who know them
Who knew them)
Why do we miss these things?
It’s not the superiority of the building
It’s the memories it holds
But buildings don’t hold memories
We do
We still have the memories without the building
But we value it anyway
Why do I still long for home?
How can that building hold it prisoner?
Why can’t it let it go?
(But I’m the one who needs to let go
Aren’t I?)
They say “home is where the heart is”
But they’re wrong
Or they just never tell you
That your heart can divide
Into so many pieces
So that no matter where you go
A part of you will always long
For somewhere else
They don’t tell you that a piece of you
Gets left in the past
Where you can’t retrieve it
Don’t tell you about the ache
That never goes away
It doesn’t matter what happens
What you do
Where you go
You can stay in that house
Until it crumbles around you
And you’ll still be aching
Because somewhere between childhood and adulthood
A piece of your heart breaks off
Stays behind
And you can never get it back
You think if you go back to that building
That first home
You can retrieve it
But a building’s just a building
And hearts don’t come when they’re called
So you learn to live with aching
With homesickness
Forever
It’s called growing up