What Are Homes Made Of?

What are homes made of?

They say money can buy you all the luxuries in the world.

Who owns that money at the end?

Is he happy with all the luxuries?

My father has built three homes in his lifetime,

one is of course underway,

the first one was forced out of his body,

it took away his belief in relationship to get built,

not just money and concrete.

The boundaries were stretched,

to omit the brotherly connect.

The second one, he built on a foreign land,

he poured his sweat, blood and time,

time away from his family,

He hungrily savoured their sleeping faces at night,

his bones remember what they lost,

only heart felt it, when the foundation shook,

not by the earth but by the blow,

the blow by an unfaithful friend's motive,

we saw the cracks appearing on the wall,

then we knew the blow was hard enough,

hard because he lost his father twice.

First to fate and then to greed.

He became orphan then,

Now he is pouring his flesh in the concrete mixer,

to build a home for his children,

who visit him twice a year, for 1-3 days precisely.

He mixes his powdered bones to make it strong,

to make his hopes stronger,

that one day his children will live longer under the roof,

unlike guests but like true heirs.

He tries to hide his disappointments and fears under the staircase,

but they flow unvoluntarily to all the places,

there is so much, one cannot contain them in little corners.

He tries to keep them away,

so he sits by the neem tree by the side of the road,

to send away fears in batches with all the people,

who cross that road.

Home is much more than four concrete walls, supporting a roof,

it is what they hold together,

families, memories, spices settling on the kitchen tops,

freshly sun dried bed covers, oil stains on the carpet,

flakes of vermillion on the dressing table,

colorful toothbrush in the holder, sound of dripping water,

laughing out loud family pictures,

stories etched on the walls, clink of bangles,

crackling knuckles, and some broken teeth.