Tornado winds raged when I was here last.

Your fingers ran through my hair

and calmed

the strands the storm had tangled.

I wondered how long before I felt that safety again.

I left that home,

the ocean tide calling me;

its waves louder than winds.

They held more heartbreak than hurricanes,

and I wondered again

if even your arms

would still hold the same safety.

 

Home does not wield the armor of heaven,

and four walls are no fortress.

Sometimes

wind seeps below the door

and catches my breath.

It leaves my lungs tight

and my heart pounding.

My skin crawls with an ache

that I, in turn, ache to silence,

and the whispering wind

haunts my every heartbeat.

 

But if it were to whisper,

“Tell me of your home,”

I would whisper back

that, for starters, it has two arms;

for the middle, it smells like love;

and for the ending,

it is the safest thing on earth I know.

This is home,

my shield and safeguard,

even if not forever.

This is here and this is now.

 

I’d forgotten how homesick I was.

Fingers running through my hair

and a shoulder strong enough

to hold my heartache,

to ward off the wind.

This is not heaven.

But for a little while, I can rest here.

I will rise again to face

a world I never could before.

Whatever storm is yet to come,

I’d welcome every surging wind

if I could forget

the meaning of being homesick.