To Which Home Do You Return?

By Debarati Dutta

As the late evening lamplight shines brightly and tall, you return; 

To which home do you return? 

To bring your tired soul to touch those familiar warm hands? 

To hug your little one tightly which makes the small angel laugh heartily at you? To kiss your pet or to sing a melody to your birds or fish in an aquarium? To an ailing family member who is in their final days yet your temporary presence now and  then is a cure for your empty days? 

Do you return to your rental place, hostel, or your messy nest and start the jam for the next  day's toil before you retire for the night? 

Do you return to grind for another career goal after your night shift is done? Do you return to love the couch more than your daily chores, the latter which makes you  swear, but you know necessity overpowers luxury? 

Do you return to only a concrete building or a room with shabby walls and small windows  after your book has been rejected by the 20th publisher, or, 

Your auditions and interviews are not 'meeting expectations’, or, 

After your business plan can't win the hearts of potential investors? 

Do you sometimes feel that these bricks and walls listen to your pain, absorb your sorrow and  help you regain your confidence? 

The cement pillars might be your allies or pillars of support when all but you are left behind  under its roof? 

How do you cope with it when you return to known faces with cold hearts and colder souls? Does the house feel warm with all those house-warming parties after the passionate guests  and hosts have lost the charm?

Does hot coffee or cold liquor no longer excite you, my friend, but only a survival need? You return to a place, which no longer wishes you little happiness or asks you to push your  limits, to make the home adorable for anyone. 

Do you return to a place where no one greets, hugs, kisses, or wishes you for days, weeks,  months, and years? 

How does your soul feel like returning to solitude? 

The key to your front gate, the main door, and the master bedroom is in your hands, But life has different ways to change the locks, 

To open up the happiness or unadulterated peace in your life. 

To change a house into a home,  

I wish you to never give up and keep walking through the very dark tunnel, with only maybe  yourself as the torch bearer of your difficult times, 

With your sinew and incurable optimism, like your pals. 

Because you see some do not have shelters to return to, let alone homes! The universe falls in love with stubborn souls. There's magic you feel but you don't want to  see. 

Be the believer. Be the doer. 

By Debarati Dutta