Dualism

I’d say home is sacred and the most precious space

Whether you’re blessing your meals or spitting in each other’s face.

Though, it seems only blessings will show

Our shadows we unfortunately hide—something I’m still working on.

Home once meant laughter, poking fun, swinging from some trees,

But if there’s one thing you should know, we must always recognize duality.

There were times home meant despair

Cursing, drunkenness, fights I’d pray weren’t really there.

When I’d start dancing, the screams would begin to fade out.

Just like the sirens, in the background of my music, cop’s backseat took my parent right before the car drove out.

When home felt like pain, while life insisted on moving along,

I’d turn to the record player, let Sam Cooke sing me a song.

Or Id dance in my living room, hoping for someone to see;

Or in my closet I’d sit, reading a book, reading it again,

Honestly, just wanting someone next to me.

As I grew older, home like everything else was beginning to change.

My body, my wardrobe, how I wanted to play.

Home looked like friendship, mischief, sleepovers, petty fights

Prank calling, joking, sneaking out in the middle of the night.

The thought of getting caught scared me, but the thrill of it made me feel alright.

Home took a turn when exposed to teenage angst, while awareness encumbered, and my mind kept taking the bait.

Explaining trauma was never really easy.

I didn’t know it was depression that I had coined, “That boring feeling.”

Home felt like home but somehow felt far off.

Not sure where to turn, not sure if I was secure, all the lights flickered, and flickered— until one day, they just turned off.

Home meant a daunting place—mistrust, misuse, my soul misplaced.

I stayed in my home seeking order in generational destruction.

Home began to mean blue and white pills, escapist seduction.

Home meant forgotten memories,

Pages wrinkled, then torn from the book,

Overlooked lines, characters missing,

The author a damn crook.

Home meant desiring people who’d help me find some clues,

Figure out my next chapter, someone please tell me my cue.

Home meant trying to fill a neglected hole that I was determined to find.

The most like Christ I’ve ever felt—body broken, body bloody,

Call off the Roman,

I'll pierce my own side.

Life continued just like life will always do.

Silver linings my hope, one day wondered

If making a home is what I was meant to do.

I called out to the Heavens, opened my heart to Heaven’s help.

Then rain poured down clarity, and unified me with something else.

In my home, I saw a lion, a bird, and a flame.

Heard angels say, “don’t forget to trust, everything is soon to change.”

The lion’s roar motivated me, made me loud, assertive about my boundaries, letting in my home only those who appreciated the roar’s thunderous sounds.

The bird I listened to all night and day.

It delivered messages with songs to play.

Out of control, these tendons will always move.

Home is music and dance.

This bird knew it too.

I let the flame sit for a while, I like to watch the fire burn,

Imagining fears turn to ash, leaving them without an urn.

One day I braced the flame’s lips,

Told the flame to let my skin drip,

Transformation began, a new life I would soon sip.

I took on this new, almost terrifying power.

Home began to mean recycled scraps from some crumbled towers.

As I rebuilt, I found that parts of my home shouldn’t be dead, brutal yet beautiful, these chapters deserve to be read.

As smoke settled, prayers cleared up my place.

I drifted to a dream, revealing a duplicated face.

There were names written in the stars,

I heard lessons to be taught,

And I saw beauty in the healing of a handful of scars.

In the Ether I became an artist,

Discovered that home is where the heart is;

And this heart is full of trials, but way more triumphs.

A hedonistic Autumn is what gave home its shape;

All throughout the winter, I did nothing but paint.

My work done in secret, only the genuine I let know.

The world will gasp when they see my masterpiece home.

June sixth is when home began to shine,

Two little smiles, I couldn’t believe, they were actually mine.

Right there, perfectly placed, in four beautiful eyes,

Anyone can see the proof, within them, my soul resides.

Home began to mean splatters, disruption—formula and wine were its stains.

Never meaning despair, but that didn’t make home void of pain.

Discomfort feeling worth it, witnessing production of my fruit.

Home, from the beginning, meant labor, pushing harder, taking a breath, laboring again—

I’d do it an eternity for the likes of these two.

Right now, home means the number three.

Also, we the creators, the catcher of ours dreams,

Running through rain soaked fields, not giving a damn how loud we may be.

Home means a quiet, safe space to rest and spill out our heads,

Feelings of abundance and warmth, with a cool breeze that flows to our beds.

Home, once again, means laughter, poking fun, and swinging from some trees.

We’re getting a record player, too.

The kids have been into Elvis Presley.

Home still means dancing, always Oreos, and stomping on the floors.

The best of home has remained.

Except now I’m talking about trucks, and all these fucking dinosaurs.

Under the moon, home sounds like tiny howls,

Looks like bikes in the back alley, and

At sunrise the neighbors hear our home’s growls.

Home means here, now, and forever actively involved.

Wildness thrives, freedom flows, creativity climb’s our walls.

Somedays, I am reminded it’s through death that life begins to show.

Many lessons I’ve learned from all these states of my home.

Like pleasure usually being vowed to pain,

And sometimes home’s best can still mean a shit day.

Home is everything, all the things, the moments unseen,

Recognition to my burdens, for they taught me what home could be.

Home, after all, is our soul, all those moments we hold inside.

One day an apartment, next, a cottage on the Eastern side.

No matter the structure I pick to contain,

All my meanings of home, will certainly, like me, continuously change.

Home is malleable, if this story hasn’t shown.

My home touched by the maiden, healed by the mother, possibly defined by the Crone.