Thursday, July 29, 2010

Call of Home

Don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm going to stay here forever. It's just not physically possible. You have done nothing to make me want to stay.

There is no way that I will be able to resist leaving; there is no way I would want to. The voice of the horizon calls to me, ever, from afar, sometimes murmuring, sometimes shouting, always present. This may be where I was born, where I was raised, where I have always lived. But this is not home.

Home is somewhere far away, simply somewhere where you are not. Home is where the horizon is calling from, where its voice pulls my soul to come to, where it tugs at me incessantly, like a child pulling on the sleeve of a parent until they are noticed.

It is as though I was cruelly torn asunder from where I ought to be, and brought here to serve under oppression, hidden in smiles and false affection. And you wish to keep me. You wish for me to stay here, and breathe the same air you do, to think the same thoughts you do, to take the same path of life.

That is not my way. My path lies elsewhere. It is leading me away; away from here, away from these sounds, away from this air. Away from you. And that is how I wish it to be.

Of course you will try to stop me; you will not be able to any more than you are able to stop the Earth from turning, or halt the sea's ebb and flow. You will try to stop me because you won't be able to comprehend that you don't have control; the strings are no longer in your hand, and I won't be your puppet anymore. Already they are snapping, while you laugh and still tug, oblivious. How long will it take you to notice that I am gone?

The road calls, the horizon calls, and the lure of places seen only in pictures still haunts me. You don't understand. You won't ever understand. That's why I am halfway gone, and you are stuck here.

One day soon the desire will overcome me, and what's imagined won't be enough anymore, wishes won't be enough to sustain me. It will become a reality.

That's what happens when you keep a bird too long in a cage; upon its escape it tastes the sweetest freedom it has ever, or will ever know, and you are left to weep in its absence.

I look to the horizon and promise "Soon". I see the promise of Home lingering, hoping, the way the lover of a sailor stands on the shore, and prays for the ship to bring his safe return.

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