Bird As Fish

I am grateful for home. There is nothing in the world, if you travel it all over, if you see land that no human has seen before, if you see the seven wonders of the world, if you meet the rich, the famous, there is nothing like home.

Home, where life begins, where I can defend myself on equal ground, where I can sleep, unabashedly. Home, where I can watch TV without feeling guilty, where I can get something from the fridge without unapproving eyes, where I can sit on the toilet for two hours reading if I want to. Home, such an enormous sense of relief.

House, is not home. I have lived in many houses and everywhere I go, I cannot forget home. I have dreamt of home, remembered losing home, transience, of homelessness, of not knowing where next I would lay my head. I have remembered house, where living makes me nervous, where I have no rights because it is not home, where I am the interloper, the stowaway. Envy of those who have the rights I long for, the rights to the TV, the fridge, the bathroom, but instead, it is right that I tiptoe, that I step around others, that I bow and salaam and acquiesce, exist on a knife point and don't make trouble. That is what is right and proper. And my soul longed for home.

Home, it's so good to be here, two years in a row.

© 2003 All rights reserved MJ Jackson
No part of this article may be reproduced without the permission of the author.