Come Home

“You dream in a language I can’t understand. It’s like there’s this whole place inside you I can’t go.”
–Celine Song, Past Lives

There truly is a place within my partner that I can’t go, where he battles with demons I cannot see. There is a part of him that I don’t have access to, in which no one but himself can exist. In some ways I feel like he is alone in this space, and I can’t reach in to pull him out. He was discovered in a place of loneliness, where many fear to tread. I, too, have known this place but have since found ways out. We are all connected through this mutual understanding of one of the many human conditions, loneliness. He remains surrounded by this unique emptiness that only he knows and I try every day to coax him out.

There is a darkness in everybody though, urging us to stay within because it is just too familiar not to. My partner is a humble and hardy man, made up of so many stories I don’t know, stemming from a childhood I did not exist in. He lives stuck inside this dark space in his head, too exhausted to move forward. This place speaks in Russian tongues that I don’t understand, and I spend hours trying to translate the thoughts into something I can fathom. Without fail, I lose every time. These are some of my deepest thoughts laid out for him to find since I cannot find his.

There is a place inside him that I cannot go and I wish he knew how to let me in. My love for him is endless, and I just wish he would come home.

Photo by me