E 36 1/2 st.

This is our house but

it is haunted without you

No longer a home

The light has gone out

and now all is cold and gray

Why couldn’t you have stayed?

It’s loud with silence

Your oxygen machine gone

All I can hear is my thoughts

Mother is here but

she just sits in her bedroom

Rain leaks through the roof

When I step inside

No more smell of patchouli

This alien house

Lived here all my life

But this house is not a home

Not without you here

For this piece I decided to write a series of haikus. I wrote about my childhood home in which I have lived all my life. The event in my poem talks about coming home from the hospital to an empty house after my dad passed away nearly two years ago. The house, after he was gone, felt completely different without his presence, like it wasn’t “home” anymore. No matter how many people were there, it always felt empty. This has taken a very long time to get used to.