My father’s busy with the lady two streets down and my brother’s in the car with a bowl full of sadness evaporating into memories of the good ol’ days. My mother’s cleaned the house five times in the last minute or two and she won’t be satisfied until her fingers numb to the bone and her smile is sharp enough to pierce through diamonds.

I was born to even out the family but I cause more panic when I’m asleep than when I’m awake and I’m addicted to anything my little hands can get a hold of. I’ve been here for years, desiring for the walls  that surround me to become more than just an address and I can’t help but wonder what’s been holding me back. A broken family, a lost home or the streets I never thought I’d leave?

How many hands have to melt like burning candles until I learn that shoving seeds down my throat won’t turn my veins into the roots that support me? How many layers of my skin need to be burned through before I realize my heart will always be cold? My body has always been warmer than my passion. My fingertips create fires underwater and even my tears sweat sometimes.

I often lose myself in familiar streets in hopes of finding somewhere to hide. This tunnel is the only true shelter I have. The heaviness of the lump in my throat drags me down and the soles of my feet glue themselves to the floor I shadow over. As the walls around me vanish, it tears apart the person I used to be.

I buried my identity in the ground and built my safety net out of pebbles and cement, but the cracks beneath the sidewalk ****** me in and I’ve been hidden here ever since. Sometimes home is somewhere you never thought you’d end up. Sometimes home is a word so foreign that the folds of your brain reject it. Sometimes home is nothing but a house.