Dark Sweet Home

Home? Warm by any definition of the word.

Yet, if by any other name, any other calling; is it still that fuzzy feeling?

Home is the greener grass that some will never see,

The loving meal times that we only ever get to dream.

Home is a coffin, a tomb, the place where the skeletons rest.

It’s the closet we shudder inside when the footsteps come close.

Not everyone looks forward to going home at the end of the day.

But, for youth, there’s no alternative to ‘home’ once night falls, there’s no choice.

To those without a voice, to those the system fails…

Home is a nightmare, a horror movie waiting to be written.

A night of insomnia that they’ll never escape, a bad dream that never ends.

Home is the place where mommy and daddy fight,

Where the holes in the walls make new holes in their hearts.

Where the scents of smoke and spirits break their faith.

Home is the place where they’re embarrassed to invite friends.

Because a broken home is not a place to feel proud.

Home is where you get no privacy because you’re not allowed to see your father.

Home is the place where you feel like Harry Potter living in a closet.

A tiny space where you can never get enough sleep.

Every creak of the floor is a new spasm of fear, are they passing by?

Or perhaps the door will open, and the horror will begin.

Home is that feeling of leaving for school in the morning, finally able to breathe for a few minutes.

Before the teachers start watching you, that small meal of oatmeal they serve to fill your empty tummy.

Home is the reprieve from fear and the few moments of happiness with fake friends.

Home is that short walk to the place you live… Before you’re ‘home’ for the night.

Home is a coffin, a nightmare that lives in my dreams even now.

One year I had a hell called home, and that hell is the home to nightmares.

A place where the skeletons were kinder than family.

Where scars run deep and tears never stop.

Home… Is a place of fear and pain.

When that was home… There was no help, there was no hope…

There was almost a bad end.