Childhood Homes
It is as it always was
Though different
Ceilings lower
Paint worn
And the steps of the staircase I once walked
Seem narrower
Darker
I don’t quite trust that creak beneath my feet
It all feels very fragile
Or is that me?
Where once I ran without thought
Rooms echoing to the sound of childish feet
Stand silent
Replete in their new adornments. Nothing here belongs to me
I am a passing thought
Wandering, looking for an anchor that does not catch
But drags aimlessly
Memory and this moment are at war
We leave things just so
But of course they change
Become different, whilst we are gone
And the mind must account for that difference
So the myths shimmer within the charade
What is real feels hard and alien beneath my finger tips
Grains of dust sugar my human prints
Smudging, smearing something uniquely me
Leaving a ghost within
Neither here nor there
Floating
Childhood homes are strange places to the dispossessed
When parents have moved on, some deep mooring is lacking
Then others move in
Usurping,
Like some sort of sacred transgression of memory and moment that is not even ours to begin with
Yet it feels so damn personal
Away on the horizon
out the grey glass window
My mind takes me backwards
A screen door whines and bangs
It’s just the wind surely
That has the hairs raising
Along my skin
The scent of 4711 is missing
O’Cedar oil has vanished
And the tick of the iron roof as it heats
reminds me
A sky with no sun
Not even one that can be found behind a cloud
A sun that is now gone
Moved on to another universe perhaps
That’s it
The feeing I had been trying to put my hand on
Soothe that itch
I stand beneath a sunless sky
inside a hollow hide
Because childhood homes do indeed
Die
