This is not my home.
I’m a hermit crab
carrying my shelter
wherever I scuttle.
Home—
not an edifice
not a walled enclosure,
no roof protects me.
This is not my home.
An electric pulse propels me,
I’m a crazed windup toy,
a dizzy top,
watching the world
through my distorted prism.
I’m the leader of
the lost
and
lonely.
This is not my home.
I flee my assailants,
I steal,
I lie whenever possible,
truth being a
made up invention
not to be trusted.
I speak in languages
no one has ever heard.
I forget most things.
I never look for what
I’ve lost.
This is not my home.
I adhere to no dogma,
write my own commandments,
then disobey them all.
This is not my home.
I join radical groups,
defend the oppressed,
invest in projects I know
will fail.
I wear many masks.
Every day is Mardi Gras.
I instigate rebellions,
make all my objections
conscientious.
This is not my home.
I relinquish citizenship,
possess a passport to a country
that doesn’t exist.
I’m the Queen of Siam.
I’m Jezebel.
You’ll find me
In the Bible and
The Book of the Dead.
I defy all traditions,
Spit on my grave.
This is not my home.
Home is a bench
in a Greyhound depot,
a railway car,
a jail cell,
a bed in a psychiatric hospital.
Ragged, hungry,
there are holes in my socks,
my soles are worn,
my soul is worn.
I wear a cloak of invisibility,
It never keeps me warm.
This is not my home.
No boundaries contain me,
I go where I’m not wanted,
wipe my feet on the
the unwelcome mat.
I insist the earth is flat.
I walk to its edge
and fall off.
This is not my home.
I ask myself
Why am I here?
I meditate
on the lack of
an answer.
This is not my home.
I’m a spy
reporting on
an apathetic god.
And if you look
you’ll find
my obituary
written in graffiti
on the decaying walls
of every city.
Rose Oliver is a retired psychiatric nurse who now has time to devote to indulging her voracious reading appetite. She is a reader turned writer, following Saul Bellows’ intuition that “Writers are readers moved to emulation.” Her works have appeared in online and print journals. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
