A collection of small poems (Lo fi beats and rain in the background)

Moving

Moving on is a lot like moving out.

It was once a home, the place you go after a hard day. The softness and familiarity pulsing with warm lighting and hand-me-down kitchen chairs.
Home is where you celebrate.
Where you bring in the joys of being alive and collect memories like stamps.
You work on it. Alter it. Move things to *fit* better (or so you think)

Home is where you despair. Where you sit in your shower and let their tears mix with yours until all you feel is the water pooling at your feet because you never cleaned the drain

What if

You have roaches.
You have pests hiding behind your corners and under all of your favorite things. Little bugs that crawl and invade and defile. Making them unclean.

What if

You can't grow here.
If you were a plant, your terracotta would be dry and cracked. You try to spread and extend roots but you end up encircling yourself again and again and again and again.
This time it'll be different! We can round this corner and there will be better things here.
But you go in circles and use up all your energy with the tangles and dead ends.
First your flowers go, fading and dying because how can you Possibly worry about pollination when the bees have left and the soil is dust.

Then goes a leaf. Brown. Started with a wilt and continued to shrivel the more the sun gazes. What used to be energy and fulfillment is a scorching heat with eyes watching as you wither. Without your leaf

How do you grow? How do fulfill your soul when the parts of you that were functional are gone?
When all that's left is the coiled mass of roots, you will realize too late that you chose too small of a pot. Never even fertilized after the third day of ownership.

Neglect in the most painful way, a kitchen floor with broken tiles cutting feet. Never fixed. A disclaimer of "watch your step, it's sharp" but do they address the mold growing and warping? Seen but not cared for. Heard but not even a glance in your direction.

The thought lingers
What if It's time to go?

It starts quiet, a brief search on the options online, fleeting thoughts of "what would it be like to live like That..."

A deep unhappiness settling, the persuasion pleading change in local

A talk with your friends, the informal poll of gathered minds evaluating the pros and cons, costs, risks, time

The day you leave to meet an agent and view options, that's the day you can never go back.

Once you see the world, see all the warm homes with an inviting fireplace
How can you go back to that old shambled house? The scab has been lifted, and the wound will soon bleed.

The day you pack that bag, that's the day you tell the world you're leaving

You've known, but your neighbors are shocked. The pastures looked green over there, and the lights were always on!

Your house will protest. You will feel guilty, second-guess and double check all your bags to make Sure you never have to come back, you don't live there anymore. You will say goodbye as best as you can, but the memories collected are sharp and stick to your soft parts in all the wrong places.

You might keep the pictures of your old place, and you'll keep your antique furniture, but the house will be left standing empty

Just know, it is not your responsibility to fill it. Sell it to the bank and run, because once you see the empty halls, dirty brick, and squeaky floorboards as they are you will never want to come back. A house looks different than a home, and you'll know that soon enough.

Let your roots explore and don't tolerate any pests. Pay attention to the cracked tiles in your new place. Be confident and proud because you got out. You had the courage to move on your own. You moved on.

Now you are free
To move