where is home?

By James Eze

you split the sky and asked
me to choose a half:
both halves belong to me.
home is not a dot on the map;
home is the safe place within.

what use is a homeland
when it feels like exile?
an opulent castle
whose occupants
neither blink nor sleep.

home is not a birth mark
assigned without consent.
not a tattoo slammed
on the skin on a whim.
home is a meditated choice.

my home is not a map:
the delirium of a cartographer.
nor the parch of land
that holds my father’s bones.
home is the safe place within.

where sunrise and trees endure
where streams flow
in timeless majesty.
where a warm smile
awaits my return –
is home.

home is wherever my kind survives!