Degrees of home

Have you ever felt

That you can never go home again

Or that you have never ever really been home

In all your life?

Perhaps some other world ,

Some other life,

Is missing you.

---

I stood alone, still a boy

Enthralled by a Master’s painting

A scene at once unfamiliar and beckoning

It was of an old mill, but that mattered not

It drew me

I wanted inside

I don’t know why

It felt like home

A long time I stood

A tall man in a grey suit

Asked if he could help

I stammered, confused,

Looked from him back to the painting

He smiled,

Put a hand on my shoulder,

Walked away.

---

Older now,

I imbibed with peers

That which was unwise for me

It changed my mind

Changed my mind

I looked back with longing

Even to homelessness felt before the Old Mill

For now I was so far away

So far away

I did not want to stay

Just like the boy I was at ten

Who climbed the highest diving tower

On a dare

I, who had never even been

In the deep end.

So desperately afraid

But poked and prodded

By the jibes of the bullies below

To walk the plank.

I must take the plunge.

I must do it.

I cannot go back.

What came of it?

The boy of ten grew into something else,

Within and without

And the bullies scattered,

Sensing trouble.

---

But now this self wrought wrong

This play for peer approval

Had brought me to a wrong turning

And I was

So far away

Too far away.