A PLACE OF UNREST

 

A Place of Unrest

Attention has slipped its leash,

Wandering like a stray dog through the night,

Sniffing at every shadow, every fleeting scent,

Never settling, never finding rest.

It howls at the moon, a hollow, lonely sound,

Echoing through the empty streets of my mind,

Lost, untagged, with no address to guide it back.  

"There’s no place like home," they say,

"Home is where the heart is"—

Who the hell came up with these tired lines,

These one-size-fits-all clichés,

And called them truth, called them wisdom?

Who decided that home is always a haven,

A heart’s true north, a place of peace?

For some, it’s a cage, a battlefield,

Where love and war share the same bed,

And the walls close in with every breath.  

Home: where I keep my clothes,

Where I shower, where I store my things—

A building, a noun I avoid like a curse.

It’s a roof, four walls, a door to lock,

But not a sanctuary, not a soft embrace.

It’s where I hang my hat, but not my hopes,

A place to exist, but not to live.

The air is thick with unspoken words,

Dust motes dancing in the shafts of light,

Each breath a reminder of the weight I carry,

The tension coiled like a spring in my chest.  

I make excuses to stay gone,

Linger in cafes, in parks, in the rain,

Anywhere but there, where silence screams,

And every creak of the floorboards whispers

Of promises broken, of dreams deferred.

It’s the place where I feel most tense,

Most awkward, on guard, on edge,

Ready to love or duel—

Both equally as likely tonight.

One moment, your eyes are a warm hearth,

The next, a storm brewing, ready to strike.

I tread lightly, a tightrope walker,

Balancing between your love and your wrath.  

Tired, underfed, far too long

On your love, on us, on the fairy tales

You made me believe—

You spun tales of happily ever after,

Of a castle built on clouds and starlight.

But the clouds parted, and the castle crumbled,

Leaving me in the ruins of what could have been,

Where I once closed my eyes and dreamed,

Believing, because of you, that dreams could come true.  

Home should be a refuge, a warm embrace,

But here, it’s a graveyard of dreams,

Each corner haunted by ghosts of us,

Whispering of love that turned to dust.

The fairy tales lie buried beneath the floorboards,

Their pages torn, their ink bled dry,

And I am left to wander, like attention itself,