What is home?
A place?
A person?
A feeling?
Or just a prison dressed in nostalgia,
a lie we tell ourselves because the truth burns worse?

They said home is where the heart is,
but mine was torn out and left to rot.
They said walls listen,
but mine stayed silent when I screamed.
They said doors always open,
but mine locked itself before I could turn the handle.
They said home never leaves you,
but I stand here, and it’s already gone.

I gave this place everything—
my laughter, my silence, my quiet prayers at 3 AM.
And still, it abandoned me first.

Now it stands there, hollow and rotting,
pretending to be something worth missing.
Like I was the problem,
like I was the one who let it fall apart.

Fine. Let it crumble.
Let the wind rip through the bones of this house.
Let the fire take it all,
turn the walls to embers, the memories to dust.

And when the ashes settle,
when the smoke fades into the sky,
maybe then,
it will know what it’s like to be left behind.