Homesickness?

I remember, back when I was a child. And all that mattered was not getting caught having one too many candies. I'd come back from an exhausting day at school, to the smell of fresh dinner and a sister ready to pester. Sleep, wake up, pretend to do homework, and wait to go to school the next day.

There was once a time when pencil marks on the wall would decide how much you’ve grown. I’d stand up straight, to make papa proud and beam when another pencil mark would surpass the one before. Sometimes, I’d leave footprints on the wall when I’d absentmindedly put them up while reading a book or talking over the phone.

And even though, mamma hated colour pencils on the wall, my sister never stayed within the lines - her imagination used to be splattered like a rainbow squished out of a toothpaste tube. But when you’re a child, you’d move with the same set of people, going through the same struggles, laughing till you’re crying and crying till you’re laughing.

And then I remember the bad days. The rebellious child in me, not taking 'no' for an answer, choosing to go to bed crying, only to wake up to a mother always willing to forgive. The furniture would usually increase from one house to another, so would our baggage. So would the crease lines on mom’s forehead, And the grey hair of dad. Just when everything started feeling familiar, it was always time to move again. 

But then you’ll move so many times that the blur of shifting places will become a whirlpool and before you know, you’re just running around in circles, and where you don’t matter anymore because you’re standing no more, you’ve just let yourself go.

I remember wanting to run, fly, soar, dive and escape in every form you can imagine. I wonder why?

Now, here I am, in the dead of the night, by my window,
With my charred lips and breaths of fire,
A parched tongue with the taste of cheap wine,
Somewhere, in an unfamiliar land.

For I was the boy waiting to fall in love,
Only to find myself lying next to …….
And I still go to bed crying.
Only I wake to up to an empty house in the middle of nowhere.

I play with the fumes I exhale, as another day begins,
Somehow wondering when this will all end
But oh yes! At least I ran, I tell myself.
I ran, and I flew away.

But, someday, the city you were born in will become a picture on your wall. And it’ll tell you how much you’ve grown.