I want a home

Something in my heart pleads

Yet I silence it with stolen glances and breaths taken on concrete

I want him mine, something in me says all too weak

And all I do is smile towards his distracted eyes and wink

Where are you going next? My lips speak around ease

Where away from me? My heart questions in defeat

Here to that store

There to that hill

Somewhere in a kingdom where only rivers end.

I nod and nod and nod

I want a home in him, something pleads

He doesn’t, my clenched hands repeat.

On most nights, I breathe

Did you know that rivers run?

Always and forever

Flowing and not stopping

On most nights, I try to breathe.

Do you know what becomes of a home built on river shores?

I try

I try

I try to breathe

It drowns.

There's an ache in my heart all too clear

When night quietens down and only we breathe

A shine in my eyes you gaze at with a fond everything

Yes, yes, it's water

No, no, it's not what you seek.

There's a tremble in my hands even when buried in ground

A hesitation to my voice that spells too many words I hope you never read

Yes, I'm alone. Yes, I want a home.

Yes, it's you. Yes, it always has been.

I want the kind of home you build

On steady grounds with a picket fence

I want the kind of home that stays

That stays that always stays

No

No, that's not it

I just want you to stay

I always have.

You're always quick on your feet

Even when standing, even when resting

Nimble fingers light feet

A presence so faint you have to strain everything to see

I would watch you dance around all what life gives

With a faint smile and a stubborn utterly breathtaking glint

I would watch you skip over life

Like a stone on a river does

Except you don't stop

You don't fall

You only ever flow

It's beautiful

It's everything.

It's worth the brightness in your gaze

The pride in your smile

The blisters on my feet.

Our village is a tiny one

Surrounded by a forest and nothing else

The elders say in that threatening tone

Children, don't step into the unknown.

You would sway in boredom and wait

Then look at me with a shining gaze

Mischievous and calm

Like the unknown is only for those who don't flow

Want to go home?

And I would nod like I always do

First, with guileless curiosity

Then, with fond confusion

Couldn't quite understand it then

Why we never say the same words

When speaking of home

Then I understood

Then I carried

The ever-present dread between the fondness

Yes, we can go home

Yes, we always can

But I only ever follow you

Your home is not mine

Or perhaps

My home is not yours.

In the forest, there was a quaint river unsullied by all

You would sit at its bank and stare

Til night touches the sky

Til I have to hold tears back

My fingers dig into the earth, and I bite my lips

I'm never going to tell you how I fear every water you touch

It's your home it's your home it's your everything

But god, how I wish it could be mine too

How I wish I was anything but a human that fears rivers and ends.

It's the fact that you are here

The fact that when I look enough

When I try enough

You are always here

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But my heart is troublesome

My heart is childish

It wants to know that it has you

Even when not looking

It doesn't

I don't

I don't think anyone on this earth can.

That's just the beauty in you

That's just the river in you

It's the fact you are here

It's the fact you are not.

I don't wish to stop you

I don't wish any amount of despair on you to the day I die

I want you to be happy and thriving and always always

With that light in your eyes.

It's just difficult sometimes

It's difficult to build a home in somebody

And watch it leave every time.

You will come back

And I will wait

I just wonder I just question

When will you not?

I hardly compare to the mountains and the trees

I hardly ever compare.

When you are close, I am too

You giggle at me all shy and swat my arms away

And I laugh and continue it like a joke

It may be the worst joke I told in life.

I need you to breathe

I need you to breathe

Even though I don't have you, I'm drowning

Even though I avoid waters like the plague

Even though I pull you towards land with mirthful eyes and tight hands

I can't escape what you are.

It only ever lessens when I'm so close it'd be impossible for you to run

When I'm so close, I can imagine

Entering your chest and your heart and your blood

And staying there

Forever and ever

And ever.

You speak of far lands with a fascination I watch in silence

The trees how their colours differ

The food how its taste shocks

The beauty and the people and the roads

The flowing and the never-stopping

And the gifts you brought.

Sometimes, it lights me up so much that my entire being softens in your hands

And sometimes

Sometimes, it pains me to my core

That the softness has an ache I'm quite familiar with

And since you never notice a difference, I think

That I'm always like that in front of you

Soft light fond

Aching hurt pleading

All synonyms of my love.

I let a breath out after months of waiting

I haven't been forgotten

Your eyes still look towards me

My heart still jumps.

I accept the gifts with distracted hands

Always in a hurry to touch you in some way

Are you real

Are you here

Am I real for you, too?

I put the gifts away with fast words I don't quite remember

Aching to have you in my hands

Not your heart nor your home

Nor much of what I seek

But to a parched heart, and that's all I am in front of you, anything is enough

Any part of you is enough.

You are the river that drowns me

The well that escapes me

The water I wish I could ever have enough of

The water I wish I never touch.

You are everything in my life, it seems

Didn't leave one thing to me

That's fine

That's okay

I don't seek much beyond you.

I return the gifts on the nights you leave

I go to the forest to the unknown

To the first place that took you away from me

And I hang them on trees

Bury them in soil

Scatter them on flowers

I get down to my knees on the river bank, and I whisper

To the unknown to the waters to the world

Please return them to me.

I get down to my knees

And I pray

Only the world that is in you

Could ever lead you back to me.

I do not know if the pleading of a human reaches the world

But you always return to me with new gifts, and I liken them to new hope

I always accept with open arms and open love

It might not be a sign, but it might

Let this be a way I can speak to your home

Let my prayers be a way I can ever be in your home.

People always look at us with some feeling I try to ignore

Awe from the younglings searching for love

Knowing from those who have it

And yearning from those who once had

The last one stops in my throat

Makes me swallow all my words

I avoid, and I ignore.

Otherwise, I'll just tell them all

Yes, I searched for it

Yes, I have it

Yes, I'm always searching for it

Yes,

I'm always yearning.

It's not a story I speak to anyone

Even if my everything is open in front of your eyes

I would like to not agree to any of the pity-filled eyes

Darling, your life is ahead of you

Child you can love again

Rivers are dangerous

Rivers don't stay

How are you going to build a home on a rocking wave?

I bite back words

I bite back tears

I turn my back and search for you again.

They tell me to leave like I can

They tell me to leave

Like I have anything of a river in me.

I'm human

I'm human

I'm human to the last inch of me

I'm selfish and greedy and arrogant and hurried

I love and hold on and never let go

I stay I stay I stay

I wonder if that makes me less than human

Or more

But it does not matter it does not

It does not make me water you can hold.

I tell this story in the only way I can

In holding your hand with a scolding tone

You always liked to touch the unknown.

In staring at you in most of what you do

Like every second holds a new you.

In my heart beating for you

So steadily and loyally

That I fear sometimes It's solely for you.

In the far lands I smile upon hearing

And the gifts I cherish while praying

And the water I dry off you when it comes from a raging sea.

I do it in the ache that tells me you're here

And in the home I rebuild every day

You liked those purple flowers from that pretty land

I put them around my home and inside my heart

And wonder with trembling hands

If you can ever stay.

I tell it, and I tell it, and I tell it

And I wonder if I will ever stop

The words of my helpless love and my calling heart.

(The lonely lover tells the story and often forgets

That they are not the only one who can.

The flower-like soul waits while the seasons change

They greet the rain and the bees and bloom in their garden of chosen love

But nothing quite lights the soul like the river that passes through with a delicate step

The flower unfurls with a bashful love

And the river so, so taken by its beauty

Keeps the garden forever in its run.

The soul forgets and forgets

That a river returning against its current

Is a river so deeply and utterly in love.

But it is the fear that binds humans to earth

It is the fear the river has

When its love often forgets

How one who is all water

Is still quite human in the end.)