Homely Void

Before feeling me you need to see how I look.

I am the yellow of a sunflower, orange of the sky with a setting sun, red of a burning flame, blue of still waters and black of a cold coal.
I am home.

Home, which never satisfied you.
Home, which couldn’t make you feel your own.
Happy.
Comfortable.
Warm.
Love.
Perfect.
Which couldn’t make you feel my colors.

Before you reside in me, you need to live in me.

Did you ever think of the last time a home felt home? The last time I felt happy with my residents?
Tell me, why did you come and occupy me when I was just four walls with a thatched roof? Did you ever try effacing my abandon-ness?
How could I make people feel full when I myself was so empty? How could I make you feel warm all the time when even I also shivered every time you broke the fragile threads I was made up of?

I have been another place to pass by for so many people. So many people came and made a house out of me, leaving me, whispering ‘it never felt like a home.’
You know, even you didn’t feel like my own. You were just a detached resident of me trying to feel comfortable with someone who wasn’t comfortable with you.
You know, more people have left me, telling me that I don’t feel like home than the ones who decided to stay and open my windows. You were just one of the former ones who never thought of dusting me or lighting me up with the fairy lights you always decorated the entrance of your heart, ‘proceed with caution’.
You wanted me to stay homely even when you turned cold.
You wanted me to love you while you were cursing me. Why wouldn’t I get angry?
You switched off the lights and called me dark.
The problem was with you as much as it was with me.

So yes, I am a house and a home.

I am both.
And I can feel like both.
To feel like home, you need to live in me before you decide to reside in me.
You need to make me feel like your own, for me to foster you.
I need the warmth of your body sleeping inside me.
I need the love inside your soul to make you feel home.
I need all the things which make you because that makes me too.

But the sad part is you call me home, and then you leave me like demolished churches and forsaken bookstores. You leave me like a book which couldn’t interest you well because the ending was 300 pages far.
You leave me as if I were a house.
You never realize that home is after all a home, no matter what it feels like 2 days later; because you know, things are never perfect and even I have my ups and downs.
You never realize that I might not feel warm today,
that I might not feel like love today,
but tomorrow I will be all the warmth and love I failed to shower on you last night.

So the next time you embark on a journey of setting up a home, bring a few things with you.
Bring a broom – to dust us both, some fairy lights – to welcome our residents, some flowers – to freshen us up, some fire – to burn all that can destroy us and some love – to share with each other.
Let us exist in each other and I will be the yellow of a sunflower, orange of the sky with a setting sun, red of a burning flame, blue of still waters and black of a cold coal.