I am always the one left stranded,
abandoned on a road where the light ran out.
I am forced to navigate a map I cannot read,
without a hand to steady me
or a voice to pull me from the dirt when I fall.
I wander without a compass or a star.
Some days, the glow of a window is so close I could touch it;
others, I realize home is just a mirage I’ve chased for years,
a beautiful lie that kept my feet moving
until I finally stepped off the edge.
I’ve been walking for years,
hunting for whatever it is that makes a person whole.
The warmth that makes others stop
and turn their faces to the sun.
Maybe home isn’t a place meant for me.
Perhaps I am a permanent ghost,
haunting abandoned houses
where the chaos in the corners
can never fill this hollow space.
The walking is over, but the weight has just begun.
I am standing in the remains of a life I never got to live.
My heart is a liar that refuses to stop,
it wants to build a fire out of the splinters
of a home that was never more than a memory
I used to trick myself into moving.
But my mind is tired.
It is a ceiling ready to cave in,
heavy with the weight of the road.
One day, I want to be still.
Not because I’ve collapsed,
but because I finally recognize the ground beneath me
and find it enough to stay.