warm glass

here stands our house. the house that our neighbours always said that our house was a constant target of ball lightning during thunderstorms. here i looked for butterflies in the orchards and pickled beetles off our potato plants. the ground that this home was on was a home to many things, unexplained. the home held memories of nu pogodi, knitting and crepes with butter. when you put your ears to the walls, you can hear screams and bones snapping, just like it happened a moments ago. here the brown floors still hold the blood - our blood. here it holds the memory of waking up at 1am to see my brother, sleeping whilst sitting up in his bed with the tv still on.

in 2021 i found out that our home had been sold and bulldozed. i am deeply heartbroken by the news and that i never got to come back to it as an adult, who was perhaps more brave to face it. i wish i could have had the time with every room to just exist within it. it hurts most of all to know i will never be able to touch the wood, the floor, the furniture. i wanted to stand in the room my brother and i danced in. i wanted to sit down at our kitchen table and use the front door again. i wanted to see what the window at the top looked like. i wanted to look out of it. i wanted to connect and feel like this is where i am from. i wanted moments to myself.