Home is Where I'm Not
Written by Joanne Tedds on Tuesday the 4th of October 2011
Home is where I'm not,
Racing pylon lines and hedgerows,
I watch, as an occasional barn,
House or tractor Smudge passed
Like lipstick lost on glass
Speeding through lush flatlands
It dawns
There is little between here and there
Just miles of telephone lines,
Motor-ways and acres of time
'When I get home' I say
As soon as I arrive
My habits are back there,
Is that what makes it,
What it is,
When I am distanced from it?
Or is it the tug of the other pulling me back,
To a home I've owned for longer,
Memories are trapped in a place,
That disappears as soon as I disembark
I loved this small square of map,
Boundary stomped by my little and growing feet,
Different now,
Built up and knocked back down
Around our buried footsteps;
Faded ghost lines,
Lay waiting to be wakened,
While I am here & there
Or wherever,
Short sharp pangs
Like the snap of elastic bands
Put the past in the daydreams of the present
If home is where the heart is
Mine is broken, fractured.
Back, Words, Traced in dust,Splintered in the hands of old flames,
My growing pains,
Lay stretched,
Pressed into beds,
A weather worn doorstep,
And calls for 5 more minutes,
My home is split,
Transatlantic,
Leaving love shaped relics
In cities I've visited,
Good friends keep,
A ready made bed,
and Toothbrushes in tumblers,
Are antennae to other worlds,
My sprayed scent lingers
Until I finally return
While my heart can straddle time,
Span continents,
Touch the living and the rest,
Home is different, Wherever I am,
It is always,
Where I am not.