The house I was born in holds no trace of me anymore
The walls are a pristine white that almost burns the eyes
All the posters I haphazardly taped up are long gone
My mattress gone, new bed draped with a lavish cover
You live in a house without me.
A house that I never lived in.
A house that I burn to the ground every night in my dreams.
I used to dream of a place without you. I live there now.
I walk around cold empty hallways checking corners for you.
The relief of not finding you has long since become a deep unease.
And sometimes I visit the town you live in. Bask in the sweltering heat and smog.
I hate the heat, but it feels so much more real than the cool breeze that greets me every day.
Alone.
I find myself grieving that sterile white house every now and again. Maybe less the house. Maybe more the person that should’ve been living there.
For the person I am now has no home
And I tell everyone about you, just to see their faces contort with disgust, just to see their posture grow tense, just for it to be real.
And I treat myself the way you did to make up for your absence. I pretend to understand myself and the world so deeply and profoundly because everything that hurt me is now gone.
But the ache still lingers.