No Complaints

It is shameful to consider home as it is to some people. For some people home is feeling as though you live in a shanty when you actually live in a two story house. Because your own room never quite feels like your own space.   Home means constraint and confoundedness, never being able to express yourself without being a threat and a nuisance.

It means being 27 years old and still being a child. Shadows of your mothers past blocks your light and by the time you are 20 something you have forgotten that you are human. It is by your overly tenacious mother who must do and say everything before you do or say something that you became a writer rather than a singer. It is seeing the competition that she has had in her eyes ever since you can remember meeting them. It is not showing up fully to a competition because every competitor's name is spelt mom.

Youngest child, buried deep in the darkness of the shadows of the moon, you are the one who self hates in order to neutralize the hatred coming in from others.The shadows densify around you and overtime it becomes your cloak of armor, your shield. Home is the shame that you feel in how much your despise the person you rely on to pay for the roof over your head.

It is the quietude that sheathes you and commands your to stop yelling when you express yourself in song. It is the impatience of those who admire your voice and  condemn you for not using it. They want to break your teeth, especially when you point out that they want to harm you because of a trauma they have never endured. They may have grown into self nurturing adults, but they have not had that part of them blocked by their gateway into the world and their primary nurturer who stalks around you as you write and call it playing because she wants you to do something for her.  

Outsiders do not understand. To them you are weak. You say nothing because home has taught you that your version of the world is an obstruction. It is where no one notices the sweltering pressure on you in your teenage years that only gets heavier when you hit 20 years old. Asphyxiation forces you to sleep and when you wake up you are past your mid 20's.  Insiders do not understand, to them you are damn near invisible; mama's sheep. Black, shadow covered sheep.

Relief of this feeling is the equivalent of complaining. You cannot and shall not complain in the eye of the law.  Your sister smirks as she tells you to look after your mother before she leaves. Your mother who has just fallen ill at work and comes in claiming to be too weak. You have already noticed how she bathes like a swan in the pity and protective attitude of her children- even when it is undeserved. Home is yelling at strangers because your mother has insisted that they've done something wrong only to find out that they really didn't.

Home is no longer fighting for a supposed ally because your built in allies have taken advantage of your Taurus protective nature. It is defending your people only to have them defend the people you are defending them against. It is watching the look of satisfaction on their faces when they see you back down. Home is that place that has nurtured this bitter and terrible feeling in your gut of apathy. Ironic apathy to someone who maybe had too much pity towards you because you are at an embarrassing age to live in her home. Absolute strangers who judge your rudeness as spoiledness because they happened to have been spoiled and supported by their mothers. Mothers who didn't go to university for a degree in the same field you were preparing to go for just when you got out of high school. Mothers who advised them to take care of their appearance rather than telling them that they were doing too much and trying too hard when they did. Mothers who said their elementary school raps were good and encouraged them to graduate in their talent rather than calling it yelling. They do not want to trade, but they are willing to hate you because you are more than 20 and less than 40 living with mother. It doesn't matter that you just woke up- in fact, that doesn't make sense at all. Home is see through. You are lazy and not trying hard enough. And your mother has been a force of good, although you know another set of words to describe her and this situation. Ones that let the audience know that sympathy has no residence in this relationship.You don't admit it outloud when she comes home from the hospital, but you go into your room and close the door, avoiding conversation and contact. Home is a force of habits that advise you to do what you can and as quickly as possible that you can get out. 

It is also the place that burns you out, thusly blocking your get out quick plan, because stability does not come when rushed. 

Home as always is a warzone on your personality and individual being. But you do not say anything because you are an adult and adults do not complain about their parents. 

Home is the reminder at the end of your rant that this is not nor has it ever been your home. Simply a place where you have lived for far too long. Home is a place you still have a chance to create for yourself.