Stages...
Denial is stacked and mortared. Right angles and sharp lines. Anger is something solid. A bargaining made of bricks and fired clay. A depression hardened and packed in place. You're not dealing with a structure of sticks and straw. You can huff and you can puff all you want, but you'll never blow it down. Home is where the absence is, and we build a wall around it, attach a chimney and a roof. It keeps the wolves out, but it keeps you locked in.
Inside is everything that survived. All the pieces and the parts. An altar of the crash. A trauma built around lost things. A monument of not moving-on. The black-box of our being left behind. Of our standing still. You can huff and you can puff all you want, negotiate or scream, but some things can't be undone, no matter what you do. Home is where the heart was, now its where one used to be. It keeps the hurt away to hide under callouses and thick skin, but you'll never feel a thing.
Sadness turns to rage, and then rebuttal, and then it tries to make a deal. You spend your days trying to change into something other than the thing you changed into, in an effort to avoid becoming the thing you always feared. But there comes a time when there is no requite. No more space for fury or lament. No way to deny what has been. Home is where the recognition lives.
You can huff and you can puff all you want, but at some point you start to learn, that no matter the wall, no matter the fall, no matter how many horses, no matter how many men, some things can't be put back together again. Home is where the acceptance starts. You change your clothes, you step outside, you take a breath, and you enter the world anew.
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