A Trip Down Home Lane

I guess we all have our own home we either grew sick of or would die for. Not just a mere house with an old bunk bed or a broken faucet but a roof of once-lovely living. I had mine, too. It's not fancy but rather close to ragged. Not lively but not dead either. A home in between existing and in a moment, simply for lease. But it endured all through these years unlike the residents sleeping within its abode. Like a typical household, a home is not one without blood or misery in its roots. Perhaps I felt a little too homesick when I decided to turn my back away from the image that stings right above the cabinet, from the dining table that served fear and abandonment at breakfast, and from the screams that echoed in every glass jar from the basement.

This place was built with rocks that dug onto earth and embraced what long have perished. It is the cold in most waters where frozen chicken cuts were submerged. The smoke in every squealing kettle that called for a busy morning. A home as if dead embers from the dirty kitchen that little kids collect to doodle each other's cheeks with combat signs and other tiny things in the name of bravery.

It was once a series of childhood albums where fireworks and event cakes were enough to put on a happy face. Once a bruised calf for riding bikes when we're not supposed to. Twice a careless kid who left her books and umbrella in places she couldn't visit at night anymore. And a million chances given to a dying moon with a beg to light up a dark house.

I run off from a wrenching memory when I knew prayers at night cannot tuck me to sleep any longer. The simplest things that resided beneath those roofs couldn't console my ever-changing heart. Either those of significance do not mend my bruises like a mother to a sick mind. And it made me run from it. Others often call it freedom from an agonizing pain but a kiss from a tired soul suited it better.

I have abandoned half of my footsteps. I say I do not wish to live in closed windows where shouts echo like leaking gas. But why must I listen as if they were a mere touch of the wind? I despise to have read these rooms with worthy books when all I had in return were pale eyes and dismissal to my frolic words as if they were void. I weep in silence with emptiness as a gift because I have no other place to call what they deemed a home. And my legs were tirelessly carrying the weight of all the broken years I was raised.

Yet I swallow these curses and lay back on a familiar bed as if no other blankets could wipe off my tears. As if nothing could make me sober up from the dizzying cycle of waking up because what I am is torn and hopeless. All of this is my truth. I am built with the same soil I so badly want to dig. I grew ill-coated dreams alongside my once dauntless abode. But all I have now is the horror hiding within the corners of this place. They might haunt me like a mad woman just as my fears or call me on my deathbed. And either way, I end up rotten like a fate fulfilled and a cycle in another's eyes.

@rks.wuhdrelis

_{A warrior of liberty. With ink stains on her mind and soul. Maayong adlaw! This page contains the information you might want to know about the author. She goes by the name Arques and is under the username @rks.wuhdrelis. She lives in Cebu, Philippines, and is a proud Bisaya. She is a listener of music and is currently drowning in the rhythm of her pop-punk playlist. And she reads too, either depressing or hilarious books. Words from MJ, btw.}

_{Arques is an 18-year-old girl, on a mission to her dream college and a writer wannabe is her reputation. There's a thin line between writing and music that enthralls her mind to scribble every time she has a chance to. To write is to dream and to dream is to be free. Except for nightmares, she believes so. She fancies writing prose poetries that is usually about childhood, life, love, tragedy, something peculiar, or even unnamed emotions. Stay tuned!}