The home I carry within me

the disease of the lost self
i have travelled far and left my home behind
i do not trust you anymore

Three accusations are brought before me.
I oveturn them all.

The journey
began
four years ago.
Let me
return
back to the start.

Four years ago,
I became aware
for the first time
of the disease
that ate
away at my roots
like black rot.

That year,
I set out
on a pilgrimage
that would span
years,
not knowing
when
I would see
my home again,
not knowing
where
I would travel to.

I dragged
my kicking
and
screaming
and
hating
self
out of the grave
I’d lain content in
and
began
the arduous toiling voyage
towards
the republic of heaven.

Three years ago,
I realized
I relentlessly
tried to build
my home
within people,
when, really,
I must
learn
to carry
my home
within myself.

Two years ago
I watched
the land
I loved;
the land
of my
hopes,
dreams,
and beliefs
fall
into
ashes
and
heartbreak.
The work
to find
and build
the republic of heaven
with my own hands
became evermore urgent.
Hope
cannot
be found
without,
pinned
to a
distant land.
It is
the invincible summer
that sings
within.

This very same year,
I learnt
that
mostly,
I want to be kind.

A year ago,
I realized
I must
learn
to swim
in the ocean
that is society.
And
I taught myself
so well
that I learned
to thrill at
the sight
of the
vast, glittering, terrifying
blue.

The search
started to turn
inward.
I stopped
traversing lands
and instead
traversed deep
within
myself.

A year ago,
I learnt
to listen
without
bearing pain.
This
is not
and will never be
a home.
Do not
carry it
like it is one.

Two months ago,
I realized
I
must
tell myself
a different narrative
if I am
to live.
I am an addict.
I am a survivor.

A month ago,
I realized
I
mistook
my humanity
for my ugliest
shame.

Four weeks ago,
I made
and remade
and remade
the choice
to
be kind
to myself.
For do I not
want, mostly,
to be kind?

Three weeks ago,
I realized
I did not
know myself
at all.
And I
would like to.

Two weeks ago,
I learnt
to allow myself
to be seen
and to bare
my heart
again
and again
and again.
It gets easier.
I learnt
to stand in the fire
shaking
but
upright.

A week ago,
I realized
I
did not
trust myself.
And, so,
I placed trust
like a mantle
around my shoulders,
and it was
so
warming
during the winter.

A week ago,
I
saw myself
with clear
and unclouded eyes.
I saw the shape
in the mirror
and how
I recognized her,
and how
I understood her.

A week ago,
I
came home
to myself
and felt
for the first time
the joy
of homecoming.

And thus,
my four-year journey
has finally come to an end.

I have travelled long and far and wide,
and I have lived in the fire, trembling, alone, agonized,
and I have lost myself to the winter of self-hatred,
and I have forged a new phoenix-self out of the ashes of my bitterness and grief and fear,
and I have learnt to build a home within myself,
and I have finally
found
the self
that I
have lost.

And I have been Persephone, toiling away below the earth,
unsure if she would see the light of spring again,
but, still, she persisted.

And I am Persephone, returned to spring,
and a part of the beauty and aliveness of the world again.
And I look back now
and I
cherish
every single step I took,
every flaying I endured,
every peace I felt,
and every inch I grew.

For I have a home now.
And there is not much to be afraid of anymore.