By Mental Emotions
Home is often described as a place of safety, warmth, and belonging. Yet for some, home becomes a place filled with questions, silence, and unspoken pain. This poem explores the confusion of living where love is expected, but loneliness resides instead.
Where’s home?
There’s no place like home,
but maybe there is,
or maybe you can define home.
What do you call home?
A place where you share the same roof with family?
Is that enough to call it home?
What if I don’t feel at home
when I’m “home”?
Isn’t home supposed to be
a place of happiness, freedom, and peace?
Why isn’t it that way for me?
Why don’t I belong?
Why is it so harsh at home?
Why are we divided,
against each other instead of standing together?
Why does home bring me pain?
Why are my tears coming more often than my laughter?
Why do I feel so lonely
where I should feel loved?
Questions upon questions.
I take the bus every day from work to go back,
while others smile,
sharing happy moments about going home.
I have thoughts about what could be waiting for me at home.
At the end of the day,
I sigh,
“Here we go again,
what will today bring at home?”
A routine of quiet sorrow,
welcoming strangers’ company
while sadness lingers with family.
I carry a burden, a pain
that comes from a place called home.
Is there a day I’ll finally find joy there?
Or is happiness always fleeting,
a calculated moment,
knowing the ending will hurt?
I wish someone would save me,
save me from this place called home.
But is it really home,
when it doesn’t feel like home?
Reflection
Home is not always defined by walls or shared surnames. Sometimes, it is a feeling we spend a lifetime searching for a place where we are seen, safe, and free to exist without pain. Where’s Home? gives voice to those who return each day to a place that holds more sorrow than comfort, reminding us that belonging is not guaranteed by location, but by love.