Almost Home

The trees lean in familiar, but the branches feel wrong.
Every mailbox is a memory, every mile drags too long.
Windows cracked open to rooms gone cold.
I see myself in the shadows—young, bruised, too old.

The porch still creaks under weight I can’t lose.
There’s blood on the welcome mat, and I know whose.
They say you can’t go back, but you never escape.
The house just waits quiet, the past wide awake.

The swings are still rusted, the yard overgrown.
The laughter’s long gone, but the yelling’s not gone.
Fingerprints on the doorframe, stains in the floor.
I count every heartbreak by cracks in the door.

There’s a name in the dust no one ever said right.
I sleep with the light on, I run from the night.
Old wounds in the wallpaper, grief in the paint.
I try to remember, but remembering ain’t.

Sometimes I stand in the kitchen and hear who I was.
The child who prayed quiet, the boy they forgot.
I want to forgive, but the years never heal.
The bruises grow deeper, the ache becomes real.

Almost home, just a turn from the start.
The map’s full of heartache, the world’s torn apart.
I walk through the ashes, the broken and blown.
I came back for answers, but I only found bones.

The air tastes like secrets, the silence is known.
I left so many times—
and I’m almost home.