Home is a morning sermon with your grandfather, learning about how Jesus loves you for who you are.

Home is being way more excited for the afternoon Easter egg hunt, some lingering guilt left with the excitement of the day.

Home is the creek where tadpoles and crawfish skitter at your feet, your grubby hands reaching for them.

Home is being driven to Sunday school at Fellowship Baptist, where you’re the only kid who shows up weekly for the meetings, your grandfather pushes you to be the best you can be.

Home is 11PMs on a school night, neon lights and gasoline burn your eyes as you stand in the frigid cold while your father watches on in the warm car.

Home is swing sets that creak with rusty seats, imagining you’re someone else in an endless daydream.

Home is telling your grandparents that you’ll come visit another time, that you were too sick to go to church today, making up excuse after excuse, afraid to admit you just didn’t want to go.

Home is blocking out the noise when your father calls you and your mother words you hate to hear.

Home is falling asleep on the couch at your grandparents house, rather to be there than anywhere else.

Home is car rides lasting hours at a time, half-asleep as greenery from the trees shake and shade the backroads.

Home is a fueling anger and resentment towards your father, who you can’t help but forgive each time.

Home is piles of pictures stamped in albums, happy smiles yet you feel sick to your stomach, one day this will all be gone.

Home is the emptiness that settles within you when you realize you won’t get a call at 8 AM from your grandfather anymore.

Home is learning to have to take care of your father when he calls for you, the dank smell of hospital rooms and death.

Home is watching your father cry for the first time in your life, crying out for his dad in a hoarse voice.

Home is hearing yourself do the same thing a year later, in your mother’s arms.

Home is washed in vanilla and fake hellos as you enter Moore’s, shuffled into a prayer circle you feel you don’t belong in.

Home is wondering why the people you thought cared so dearly never showed up.

Home is leaves fluttering to the ground outside your window, myriads of red, orange, and yellow as the seasons pass.

Home is that emptiness that settles within you during the short days and long nights, wishing you could make sense of it all.

Home is being excited for the holiday parties, turkey and pumpkins, peppermint and pine, gifts under the tree with your family’s love.

Home is realizing that will never happen again.

Home is seeking comfort in the only men who care enough in your life, crying when their jokes hit too close to home.

Home is wondering if you are missed at Fellowship Baptist, or just another lost cause.

Home is accepting your father’s mistakes, wishing he was at least here for graduation.

Home is hugs that you never want to let go of, clinging to him in fear of being alone again.

Home is looking to your future, wondering if your family would be proud of your accomplishments, if your father would be proud of the person you have become.

Home is feeling like you’re at an impasse between the past and the future.

Home is learning to grieve like a normal person, for the person you once were.

Home is moving on from what’s happened to you.

Home is looking forward to what’s in front of you.

Home is bittersweet.