homesick

written by Emily Gonzalez

i ardently believe that it is only in leaving that one truly realizes how beautiful the place you once called home was, and i find myself being extremely homesick for a home that’s no longer home. my feet are anchored to a place i can only see sporadically in my most profound dreams, a home my rotting soul will forever be tied to.

i assume my clothes are still hanging in the minuscule closet i once owned, clothes that do not fit my not-so-childlike body anymore. my toys remain right where i left them, untouched since that last time i played with them and never looked back. i wonder if they’re still waiting for me to come back. i wonder if they still remember the person i once was.

if home is where the heart is, i have been heartless for a very long time.

i feel my hands clench, form fists, then they relax. i close my eyes, somehow hoping to find myself elsewhere once i open them up again, but i am still not home.

i miss the warm touch of a now distant caribbean sun kissing my skin, the salt in the air, tangling with the laughter that once danced around me like music. i can almost taste the sea, the brine in my mouth, like it’s still there, waiting for me to return. i miss dancing as passionately as i used to, i miss my grandmother’s wrinkly hands gently holding mine. She once told me that "all the beautiful things in life have a way of tousling your hair: the sea, laughter with friends, running, dancing, the love of your parents. and i, my dear, wish for you to spend your entire life with your hair tousled." back then i couldn’t entirely comprehend it, not because i was young but because i was living it, now i settle to reminiscing about a life that was once my own.

i always blamed the wind for scattering my memories, for pulling me away without warning. but i opened the window first. i invited it in, and it carried everything i held dear with it—the sound of my mother's voice, the warmth of my grandmother's touch, the taste of salt on my lips. and now, i can't stop hearing it—how it whispers, calling me back, even though it knows i can never return.

oh how can someone never wish to go back but somehow manage to miss it all?

there are very few feelings like the night before leaving your homeland. it is a special kind of sadness, and i dare say one of the most painful. for some reason everything feels so quiet, so tranquil, like it knows you are leaving and it is already mourning the loss of your presence. i forced myself into taking photographs of everything, afraid that by the time i come back—if i ever do—things will be different and my preoccupied mind will forget the beauty i disregarded for so many years. i understood then that the most profound part of my soul was vociferously pleading for me to stay. when i left, i thought i would carry all of that with me—my memories, my belongings, the very air that filled my lungs. but time shifts things, like the way a photograph fades, its colors bleeding into something else. now, i can’t even picture my old self—the one who danced in the sun, the one who played in the yard. she’s slipping away, turning into a shadow. a ghost i’m trying to remember, but can’t.

my bitten, short nails scratch the walls i passionately try to hold on to for my own sake, because it is a fact that everything i’ve ever loved i have left behind with the marks of my claws on it. i don’t seem as nostalgic as i am—i suppose because i perhaps am a good actress—but trust me, being nostalgic is eventually going to spare me. i cannot seem to comprehend the fact that i can never go back and relive any of the memoirs i’ve collected throughout the course of my existence.

i have accepted that i will never go back to that old house—yes, house, not home—though i will continue to let it haunt me occasionally in my dreams. my toys will never see me again, i feel profoundly sorry about abandoning them. my clothes will never get out of that compact alcove to see the light of the day.

a part of this soul i force myself to believe i have will forever belong there. it will eternally dance around the walls along with the memoirs those contain. hauntingly nostalgic, hauntingly beautiful.

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Writer’s Note

Emily, a fifteen-year-old writer (she/her), is drawn to exploring the quiet intricacies of human experience. Writing, for her, is a way to reflect on life's complexity, and preserve fleeting emotions. She finds inspiration in every day moments—conversations, books, arts, and the small details often overlooked.

ig/ @emyyygonzalez

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emily

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