If home is like a body

How do we study its anatomy?

It’s winding hallways the veins that pulsate throughout your arms

Their liminal spaces serving as passageways to your heart

My eyes, the windows, they see all.

Even what we wish would stay deep below.

 

I was young when you taught me that home wasn’t safe.

For as long as I can remember, your words began to weave their way into my locks

Your hands fumbled at the handles before finally finding their way inside.

All those subtle jabs created cracks in the plaster of the hallways:

I can hear every mistake you know. Even from where I’m sitting, I’m watching you.

Even after you left the room

Your presence remained.

 

Did you know it still haunts me

The time you broke the hinges on the door with so much force

The bruise, the discoloration in my skin you left

I’m still left to scrub the paint off my halls.

When my grandmother saw my misty eyes as I scuttled down the stairs

And when I finally ran to my room to see if anything had been broken, you replied:

What? All I did was pinch her butt a little.

 

My home, invaded many times

Finally, you broke open my chest

The one where I kept all my childhood trinkets

And tossed them carelessly to the floor.

You stole the paper they gave my mother when I came out crying from the hospital

The one piece of me that was still mine.

 

Even now, 21 years wise

I’m still repairing those cracks you left with plaster

Although the door’s hinges have since been replaced

The disguise you used to sneak into my home still lingers.

 

I was only 9 years old.