Home.

Everyone's home.

You're 6 years old

And everyone's home.

All of your cousins,

Parents, uncles and aunts.

Mom and aunts are cooking.

Dad and uncles are talking on the couch.

Sisters are laying out the dinner table.

Brothers are studying.

But they're all home.

You're lying in your childhood bedroom

Dreaming about the day you'd grow up

And live on your own, independent.

You're desperate to grow up so badly,

That you forgot to take the comfort of everyone being home.

Now, you're in your 20s,

Wishing to go back.

Your cousins and you have all moved out.

You see your mom, aunts and uncle

As their hands start looking older.

Older than when they cradled you to sleep,

You start to notice all their grey hair

And wonder where has all the time gone?

And you realize,

There wouldn't be a day again

When you all get to live together.

Your siblings aren't just in the other room,

They're in another state, the other country.

You can't just run crying into your mom's lap,

You can only video chat and show no grief.

You will visit,

But you will never stay.

You will never play together

You'll never wake up a little early to have breakfast together.

You will not dance in the rain again,

Or have those barbeque nights in the chilly weather with them.

You won't even see each other every day.

I'm longing for the feeling of home.

For the warm embrace of my mom and dad

The fights with my brothers

The cuddles of my sisters

The stories of my aunties

And the wise teachings of my uncles.

But I can't go back.

My childhood home has been ripped down

The pieces of which are scattered now

Across the world, everywhere.

Nobody is home.