This House is not a Home
As I look around the room
In its disrepair
The beauty is still here
In this house
where we raised our children
Your essence is everywhere
The dirt and grime is thick
Covering the furniture and drapes
The height chart on the wall
no longer visible
and there’s the chair where you
bandaged the scrapes
Memories of our family
Are buried deep in this grime
Layers of our life disguised
In the filth of other’s lives
But their neglect
is the only crime
That you are gone from my life
is the tragedy I cannot bear
This house no longer my home
I just came to see
if you were still here
Why is life so unfair?
Christine Bolton – Poetry for Healing ©
In response to Mish’s Challenge at dVerse Poets Beauty in Ugliness
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Poetry For Healing 
Heartbreakingly beautiful
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Thank you so much! 🙂
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I’m moved by your About Me, too. True heartbreak is different from anything else. Thinking about it, talking about it, analyzing it… can all be helpful. But doing something about it … turning it into art and finding meaning in it, as you are… that’s the healing. – tsk
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Thank you so much Tony. I appreciate it very much 🙂
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I was so hoping that someone would choose this image – thank you for doing it justice, Christine! Heartbreaking.
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Thank you Kim. I am always interested at how houses take on the personalities of the owners and this story is told over and again. 🙂💕
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i feel the brokenness and the despair
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Thank you Gina 🙂💕
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Oh dear, this is so poignant… A nice sad one – I do actually like the tearjerkers even if they make me sigh…
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Me too! Thank you 🙂
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Poignant and painful. But such beauty in your words.
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Thank you so much Punam 💕
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You are welcome Christine. ❤️
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You worked so well with the image!
It’s interesting…several years ago we took a trip back to the Midwest, rented a car and drove around my home town…I’m in my seventh decade now. It was very sad to see the house I spent my early years in….yard overgrown, front steps and porch rickety and askew, paint peeling…..you can never go back. I remember wishing I’d left it intact in my memory. Your poem reminds me of that.
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Yes Lillian, it’s had happened to me too. You can never go back, it’s heartbreaking. 😞 Thank you for reading.
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Interesting take – almost a reversal of the prompt. What we hold dear reveals itself as ugly only after the illusion is shattered.
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Yes the character still saw the beauty through the ugliness of the room. Thanks for reading it V.J.
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Bittersweet; the ugly of grime and disrepair, pain of loss and still in memory and the spirit of the house the beauty of what was shared remains…lovely use of the prompt.
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The beauty lies so much in the memories…. even though all is lost, there were those good times… yes those memories are treasures.
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Thanks Bjorn. I agree 🙂
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Nice lines: “Layers of our life disguised
In the filth of other’s lives”
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Thank you, as always, Frank 🙂
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This was heartwrenching, but perfect. Every time I see a deserted house, I am always lost in wonder at what the walls could say if they could speak. I usually have to write a poem about it!
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Thanks for reading Bev. I always think that too and writing helps doesn’t it 🙂
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Oh if walls could talk, they would have so much to say… but there is always something beautiful to be found, whether its in memories, lessons learned or new perspectives. A very moving piece.
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Thank you Mish! 🙂 I really enjoyed this challenge
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When the love is gone, the house is no longer the home.
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Yes, sad but true 😔. Thanks for reading it.
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