Home

Friday, September 28, 2012

When I think of home, an image comes to mind of being on a Greyhound bus. There is green passing by along a road somewhere in the great wide open of the States. Set off in the woods is a dilapidated shack, here and gone. Or it could be a plane and clouds. It is the nowhere of permanent movement. No, I don’t feel at home there. It is just what appears in my mind with the word, home. It is the hope of what is ahead and the disappointment of leaving behind. It is family you have to free yourself from, or family who are free to dispose of you. It is adoptive strangers, who say things like, “You are not blood, I have no obligation to you,” or: “At least you don’t know how hard it is to have family, sometimes.” It is blood that hurts, betrays, goes insane, dies; it is surrogate family that is earnest but retains an easy rejection option. Lasting is an illusion, bonds are temporary. It is uncertainty, ingratiating one’s self in hopes of being allowed to stay, to continue to be loved, if not quite as much as full family. It is loyalty to a point. It is for other people to know, to take for granted enough to reject. It is the absence of belonging, identity, meaning, the earth you know, the people who claim you good or bad. It is a suspicious word, to desire but never own. It is a secret you keep because you are the sick of the pity of those who have it.

PxR’s Prompt