my heart lives in a broken home.

I keep looking over my shoulder,
out the front window,
to the spot on the street where he always parks his car.

Is he coming today? Does he know how much I need him to come today?
Today is hard day.
Today, yes, today is a hard day,
but there aren't a lot of things that get to me when I am in his arms.


Today is a hard day because today we don't go home together.
And that's stupid, because we don't go home together on any other day, either,
but today,
two of our friends went home together
for the first time,
for the rest of their lives.

And after the celebration was over,
and the sendoff secured,
and the sound equipment put away,
we both went home.
Alone.

We don't go home together.
Someday, maybe.
Not today.


He isn't the center of my identity.
He isn't the keeper of my security.
He isn't the giver of my life and breath.
He isn't the author of my destiny and he isn't the holder of my happiness.
And yet, I feel like a half of a whole without him.
Incomplete.
Homeless.
Naked.
It's like we are a broken home, split each day by the Watterson Expressway.
We don't go home together.
Someday, maybe.
Not today.

It's true, they say: Comparison is the thief of Joy.
How can I not compare
when the contrast is glaring me down,
and the robber has stolen off with any shred of gratefulness I had.
I was better off making my own way,
making my own home,
making my own happiness.
I was better off as the only part of a homogenous whole,
keeping my home and my heart and my happiness intact,
sharing my life with hundreds and thousands of others,
belonging only to the universal brotherhood of man.

Now I belong to one.
Half of my heart sits halfway across the city.
And he wonders in wonderment
and he fusses in frustration,
"Why
does she cry
at every good-bye?"

Because her heart lives in a broken home, babe.
No number of rousing choruses of "A Day is Coming Soon…"
can lessen the pain of this daily breaking homeless heart.

Be kind, and patient, and understanding.
Be long-suffering and loyal.
Be the wiper of tears
and the kisser of hair
and the holder of hands
as if they were your own.


Because I gave you my heart,
and now you carry it away

every
single
day.