My Sense of a Home

By - Mansi Singh

Home is a strange thing to write about.

it is strange because sometimes

i find it when i’m wrapped around
my favourite teddy bear.

sometimes i find it in the middle of shared laughter
in a park over stupid jokes.

sometimes i find it when a puppy lies down on its back
and lets me rub his belly.

sometimes i find it in the middle of nowhere,

sometimes i find it everywhere,
but almost always,

i find it in you.

and it is strange because

i’m sure i’d known home before you

and i definitely know i knew home after you,
but somehow, still
i almost always find it in you.

sometimes
having to steal these moments of comfort feels so right,
cuz i know it’s you.

so if you ask me about my sense of home,

i guess i’d say
it’s where i find my bones feeling a comfortable heavy
under the warmth of skin and voices familiar,
where my breathing is steady and my knots come undone,
where my shoulders aren’t weighed down by the world,
where my hands don’t shake and my knees don’t tremble,
where i rest my head and my eyes close.

so if you ask me about my sense of home

i guess i’d say
where you speak and the whole world quietens,
where i speak and you hold my words within yours,
where neither of us are talking but we hear each other;
where the air i breathe is nothing but your scent,
where neither of us can breathe but we’re the most alive;
where your hands are firm around my palms,
where my fingers fit in the spaces between yours,

where i rest my head and your eyes close,

where we rest and wherever we are

becomes home.