The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a home, is the hearth.
A structure that keeps the house warm and cozy during cold nights and powerful enough to burn the whole place down. It is the heart of the home, it is the mind.
I think our hearts are the hearth of our body and thoughts being the heat, and they do keep us happy with beautiful memories and sometimes can flare up and break us down.
To have your home burnt down to ashes or trying to burn damp logs for heat, are incomparable nightmares. But when something like this happens, we have homes that give us warmth or fresh wood because we're too numb to move.
I have been trying to keep the fire mellow, just enough to keep myself warm.
Has it flared up and burnt my walls? Yes.
But I have learned to tend to it, to add a fresh coat of paint or maybe develop it into an art or sometimes leave it there to remind me that no matter what, it'll pass and I'll be reborn.
But these winter days, all my wood is damp. And the fuels in my home aren't enough to ignite the hearth. The walls have become cold and I'm becoming numb.
It's tempting to fall into the sleep the numbness brings. But the scars my walls adorn remind me to throw the old, damp wood and pile up crisp new ones so that the next time my brother asks me "are you happy"
I'd say "yes"
YOU ARE READING
Hiraeth
PoetryWe leave a part of us every time we move forward in life, and sometimes, we turn back and look at those aged memories and long for them. Here is an ode to the memories lost, memories that are now a hiraeth, a homesickness.
