The memories are bittersweet
I try not to recall
Keeping them at bay
Not processed them at all
Sweet were the early mornings
Kettle whistling on the hob
Coffee fragrance in the air
My father fills my cup
Hot tisane and toast with jam
Waiting on the table
Tobacco smoke hanging there still
My home life looking stable
Bitter was the pill to swallow
That I did not fit the mould
I tried the best I could
Yet left out of the fold
A barrage of expectations
Attacks on all my senses
Confused and scared in fetal form
Raised walls, put up defenses
Then my father died as well
Blue, and warm no more
His cigarette extinguished
Ash fallen on the floor
Pushed beyond my will
And poison dripping in my ear
One thing I knew for certain
I did not want to stay here
Now a stranger in a stranger land
Drifting homelessly
Left to wolves and vultures too
No one to pity me
Thus comes the laborious task
To build my nest anew
Painstakingly crafting
Resources very few
Regardless, not being from here
I'll never truly fit
But like with my old kinsmen
I'm now resigned to it
So bitter are the memories
Of that, what is no more
Glad and sad in equal parts
High-pressure-morphed, my core
But sweet the things that I have built
A life that's just for me
My garden full of flowers
Greet me wholeheartedly
An oasis in a sandy storm
A place to find some rest
Still the question’s bugging me
Ubi domus est?
© Iris Overdijk 2025
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