Fly Away Home

"Do you miss me?" he asked. "Like crazy." I admitted. "Then come home," he said. Hearing those words made my heart skip a beat, and normally, if we were to look back into history, I would have gone. My brain would caution it, but I would have listened to my heart. Within every time he had asked, there was always a glimmer of hope and a spark of optimism that everything would turn out to be ok. But I always let myself get into that mess. I always let him tell me its ok and then somewhat believe it. Hearing it this time, with my ear close to the phone, my mind went through a series of flashbacks of all the times that I ran towards him with a face full of tears, only for him to run away again. I couldn't keep doing that to myself. “You’re the home I am always running towards and I can't keep running back to the same person who keeps trying to break my wings,” I said. I made a home out of him, and I thought I could live in his chest forever. I built a nest around his voice box constructed with the plastic he provided. I knit a yarn full of lies so the bed would cushion my landing. “I need to let you go, like a leaf when it knows it can’t stay on its branch anymore. I need to let you go, like the sky when thunder clouds can no longer hold heavy rains. I need to let you go, like a singer that exhales upon release of a note,” I continued. “Because if I don't learn to let go, then it would be like taking in a deep breath and then holding that breath for the rest of my life. I need to let you go, like a bird flying south for the winter. Because if I don't, I'll forever be trapped in this cage that you built for me. I will always love you, and I will always miss you, but you can't be my home anymore.”