THE STRAY OF ME

 

The Stray of Me  

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Attention’s slipped its leash again,

A mutt gone rogue, collar snapped,

Wandering loose through the underbrush of my mind,

Missing, untagged,

No jangling nameplate or address stitched to its scruff,

No map to drag it back to some fabled “home.”

“There’s no place like home,” they chant,

“Home is where the heart is”—

Who the hell forged these tired clichés,

Hammered them into proverbs,

Polished them as one-size-fits-all truths?

What sage, what fool,

Decided these platitudes could balm every wound,

Fit every jagged soul?

I spit on their wisdom,

These hollow sayings that chafe like a bad fit,

Worn thin by a heart that doesn’t buy the lie.  

Home—call it what it is:

A noun I dodge like a creditor’s knock,

A building where my clothes slump in heaps,

Where I scrub the day’s grit from my skin in a lukewarm shower,

A warehouse for the clutter I own—

Books dog-eared, dishes chipped,

A couch sagging under the weight of years.

It’s the place I skirt,

Crafting excuses to linger elsewhere—

Late shifts, dive bars,

Miles unspooled on highways under a bruised sky,

Anything to keep the key from turning in that lock.

Inside those walls, tension coils tight,

A spring wound to snapping—

I’m awkward, on guard,

Teetering on the edge of myself,

Braced for love or a duel,

A coin toss between embrace and fists,

Both simmering, equally likely tonight,

A storm brewing in the flicker of a bulb.  

I’m tired, bone-weary,

Underfed on scraps of sleep,

Starved too long on the ghost of your love,

On the “us” that once glowed warm,

Now a ember fading in my hands.

You spun fairy tales,

Wove them with a silken voice—

Promises of happily-ever-afters,

Dreams I could close my eyes to and trust.

I believed you,

Let you lead me down that primrose path,

A fool swaying to your lullabies,

Thinking the stars you hung

Would never fall from the sky.

But they did—

Crashing, one by one,

Leaving me stranded in the dark,

Attention roaming wild,

No leash to reel it back to you.  

Home wasn’t the refuge you painted,

Not the hearth of storybook endings—

It’s a cage I pace,

Floorboards creaking under restless feet,

Windows smudged with the prints of my longing,

Walls that echo your absence louder than your laugh.

I’ve stayed gone,

Chasing shadows that don’t lead back,

Filling the miles with static radio hum,

The rumble of tires on cracked asphalt,

Anything to drown the pull of that address.

But it haunts me still—

A place where I’m most myself,

And least at ease,

A paradox of comfort and dread,

Where love and war wrestle in the quiet,

Each vying to claim the night.  

You let me dream,

Fed me visions of us stitched tight,

A tapestry of shared breath and tangled limbs—

But the thread’s unraveled,

The fairy tales frayed to tatters,

Wet with the tears of waking up alone.

Attention’s lost its way,

A stray sniffing at the edges of memory,

Finding no scent to follow home.

I’m underfed on truth now,

Worn thin by the miles I’ve roamed,

Tired of the fight to love or flee,

Questioning the proverbs,

The promises,

The very noun I once called ours—

A home that holds me hostage,

A heart that won’t stay tethered,

A love that burned bright,

Then left me to wander,

Untagged, unclaimed,