A House Is Not a Home

Sunlight pours in through the cracks of boarded up windows
Illuminating my apparent lack of vision
I’m looking at the world through a key hole
And these days I draw my own narrow minded conclusions about
What I see and what I don’t
But perspective is limited looking backwards through a telescope
And I fill in the blanks with presumption
But that’s a multitude of unknowns left to personal interpretation
And I’m a clumsy architect
Reconstructing the creator in the image of the creation
So I can poetically catalogue my limited experience
And evoke an emotional response the you hear it

Organised beyond recognition
I could pass you in the street without a glance in your direction
Because I’ve become so accustomed
With acknowledging only what fits within the four walls of my invention
And if these boundaries could speak
They’d say, ‘we’re exhausted from containing such profound immensity’
But I reinforce them daily
And hammer a few more nails into the window frames for good measure

Because most days you’re a talisman in my pocket
And I reach for you only when I want something or it’s convenient
But neither produces anything but complacent regard for our relationship
If that’s what you can call it
It’s all tailor made relativity
It’s the longing for spiritual experience without the weight of accountability
And it’s relatively rampant in my perception
Of a divinity that fits in the palm of my hand without opposition
But a mountain is still a mountain
Irrespective of whether or not I choose to ascend it
Like a word is still a word and it carries a meaning
Not dependent on my level of comprehension or believing

When did my world become so small?
My universe is collapsing at the hand of an amateur
These mysteries are alluding to the inescapable
You’re not who I thought you were

And the subsequent possibility that I’ve had it all wrong
Is equally as unnerving as the prospect of beginning again
Deconstructing my lifelong limitations on everything I’m unable to control
Because I’ve become so comfortable it’s disturbing
And I recognise my proclivity for apathy resurfacing
The instant my horizon expands unexpectedly
And necessitates a response of sincerity
Sincerely I signed of every letter of our correspondence
But I was only as genuine as the security
Afforded by the distance they traveled
It wasn’t as far as I thought
You were conceptual at best now we’re staying face to face

And this changes everything!
You personify the discovery of all that I been missing
Not an abstract collaboration of fragmented parts
But holy and tangible with hands and a beating heart
Abounding in empathy yet entirely unlike me
You’re the feeling of coming home to a place I’ve never been
The reflection of my daughter in the eyes of her father
The image of the invisible residing within another

Now that I know I can’t go back
I’m in too deep for the ignorance required to stay here
Forward motion compelled by the revelation that
You’re not who I thought you were

What a relief that I was mistaken
I’ve never been so proud to disappoint myself
But I admit that I grow complacent in my frailty
Familiar patterns vie for attention in my mind
And then the questions come that have already been answered
But I ask them just the same
Like ‘did you see me when I was breaking
And do you hear me when I am speaking?’
I know you see me when I am bleeding
And I trust you hear me when I am speaking