The Knife

Home

I don't know what home is or what to think of it.

Some people say it's the place you feel safe, the place you can be yourself

Others say it's not where you are, but who you're with

To me? Home is where I live. Home constantly changes. And it doesn't matter who I'm with, or if I feel safe.

Home doesn't feel like a person either. Even the people Im most connected to, I've realized there's a barrier between us. I will never fully understand them. They've all created lives so far away from me, where even if I'm important to them, I'm not needed all the time.

I know it's a good thing they don't always need me because I've had people who did. They needed me so much I became responsible for their lives. I can't handle that.

But even when I'm with people, talking, and laughing, and sitting by the campfire, I constantly feel like I'm missing something. And that doesn't feel very homely. Its not their fault. And for once I don't think it's mine. But people can't be my home.

I can't say home is a place I feel safe, because truthfully I have never lived in a place where I fully felt safe. Not that I can remember at least.

It's not the place I can be myself, because I have called many places home where being myself would get me screamed at or the belt. Or, in my case now... I don't know to be honest... I act a lot like myself at home now. It took a long time but I do. But something is still missing. And I'm scared of the consequences if it ever comes out.

Some people call home a feeling. I guess I can relate to that one.

In my last half of middle school and first year of highschool, I lived next to a park. I fought with the people I lived with a lot, and I would get mad and storm out, or the belt would make it's appearance and I would make a run for it, never being able to just stand still and get it over with. Sometimes there was just screaming, and I'd scream back, and they'd scream louder, and I wanted the last word so badly. I wanted them to really hear what I was saying. I wanted them to just once say I was right, because I was never right, because I was a selfish kid who didn't know what hardship was. And some days, I just wanted to be alone. The park wasn't much, but it was a green field in front of a lake that wasn't safe to swim in, with a swing set in front and a baseball court near the gate.

Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I left numb. Sometimes I felt like drowning myself in that lake. Sometimes I felt at peace. No matter what I felt, I almost never wanted to go home. And I was so often lonely.

So if home was a feeling, I'd call it that: loneliness and a longing to be understood, and to understand others, and to be truly a part of something without feeling anything missing.

But home is supposed to be a good thing, and I've come to realize my definition of it is very sad. But I just don't know what to say when "home" has never been a thing that meant very much to be and while the idea of it is something I want, I don't know how to shape the idea into something I can feel.

Home is just the place I live.

Home is another one of those missing peices I can't seem to fill.

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6/3/2023