goodbye home.
jennifer kasiama.
dear home,
a house represents stability.
the serene, bright light that lingers on the windowsills gives me peace.
the haunting sound of its old bones comforts me.
the cats run upstairs, their paws falling on the floorboards like a heavy rain.
mom drinks her milky tea, speaking lingala on the phone with our faraway relatives.
her voice is big and rhythmic. when she speaks, the house is full and bursting with my favorite song.
it is a safe sanctuary.
the walls do not condemn me as i twirl in my room.
the walls hold me as i hold myself, approaching the summit of my dreams.
/
dear home,
it has been months since we moved and i am still dreaming of you /
it is as if we never left / i dream of waking up in my old bedroom but never do /
i feel awkward in the newness / incomplete as though i forgot something in the past.
where can i go to find my way back home /
/
dear home,
to remove a soul is to remove a home.
memories of late february float in my mind: sitting on worn-out and ratty green couch on the day that our story ended.
a dark explanation left us surrounded by brown, torn cardboard boxes.
no room left for debate.
traces of our family were left in a vacant home.
rooms became display cases.
the roving eyes of a hungry realtor made me feel distant from my safety.
they brought their tools of disturbance, their vocabulary of extraction, in an attempt to find significance in a space that was never theirs.
what is the easiest way to take the person out of their personhood?
you tell them to leave.
/
dear home,
you cover wear and tear with shine.
scrub the surfaces, rub out the stains until they are left white like a rubbery, grin.
conceal yourself in front of strangers.
to them, you are another thing, left out for sale.
i felt contained in my bones.
to soothe myself, i imagined that this was a choice and not a result of force.
i imagined leaving behind a memory. you can always return to a memory.
i imagined these things in order to say: “now, i depart in peace.”dear home,
the weight of leaving is cold, heavy stone in thin pockets.
the stone begs for a surface to fall on, descending to the depths of profound hopelessness.
in february, and the months that followed, my eyes became rivers that refused to run dry.
eviction notices burned into the palms of my hand, like a warm goodbye.
“it’s not that we don’t want you here. you can’t be here.”
departure means no return to the self that craved acceptance, normality in form of a building that never had their name on lease.
the house was never ours. and still, we made a home inside of it.
recollections of our history sped past as we realized there was always an expiration date.
my entire being ached from the guilt of not belonging and my body is yearned for a promised tomorrow.
quiet moments gave way to anxiety.
/
dear home,
our home was invaded by shiny heels and silk suits.
the floors cried beneath them. they were used to barefoot, cracked feet. to rushing paws.
the walls only knew the song of our laughter.
the windows knew our eyes, looking through them to the pink, glorious sun in the summertime.
as much as the house belonged to us, we belonged to the house.
there was something archeological in the way that we were embedded into its history after our ten, long years.
/
dear home,
our history, our stories interwoven, were interrupted by the intruders.
they tell you to look for shelter and a high-priced roof to keep warm.
train your head to meet bumpy concrete.
break your back to meet the metal of benches.
abandon your belongings until you can gather them later.
they offered to share the cost of a storage unit. an offer born of guilt.
/
dear home,
surrender what it means to have a home.
live in the absence of warning.
vacate your home and play dollhouse for the open houses.
let the for rent sign puncture your skin.
/
dear home,
a couple summers ago, i remember tents, sleeping bags, and blankets spread across the pavements.
protests and acts of resistance went viral. stories of displacement and police brutality woke up the collective.
and where were those in power?
those who ignore the fact that we are all closer to sleeping on the street than having millions in our pockets.
james baldwin once said: “everyone you are looking at is also you.”
the woman pacing the street, her eyes hollow and hungry. she is also you.
do you feel restless? do you feel anything, as you avoid her gaze?
have you ever had the thought of not knowing you don’t have a place to lay your head?
have you ever imagined yourself in a position of precarity?
as we collect our belongings, i fantasize about finding refuge in nature.
nature is always there to provide me solace.
water and i have an unspoken understanding inscribed in sand.
there is no lease, only waves passed between troubled spirits.
/
dear home,
what does departure mean within the context of my black womanhood?
what does departure mean when it is a forced expulsion?
to be forced out of a body, to be forced out of a home.
to be forced out of a neighborhood, to be forced out of a city.
these systems are intentional in making our bodies unlivable.
and so, we create homes out of nothing and everything in order to survive.
/
goodbye home,
i do not discover belonging. i produce a sense of belonging within myself, even on shifting grounds.
i press a leaf to my palm.
i look out to the water.
i listen to the breeze.
i became an architect in my life.
i built a home out of words.
i built a library out of my grief.
i built a museum out of nature.
i will never stop looking for a place to call home because home is ever-changing.
a house represents stability but a home is the acceptance of instability.
of uncertainty.
of action.
of movement.
a home is a practice.
home is an exercise of the unending self.