[Note from Author: The title of the series is ‘Excerpts’ and the main idea behind the series is to look into queerness at a more intimate and individualistic level. A queer person makes a diary entry on a regular basis and documents their life and experiences while navigating heteronormative spaces and dreaming of a queer utopia simultaneously. The series revolves around ideas of home, love, relationships, identity, solidarity and hope in the context of queerness. In a way, it is very much like ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’, but more queer and more personal.]

Dear Diary,

Mumma called last evening. She asked me whether I will be coming back home anytime soon. Home – I don’t know what that word means anymore. I don’t think I ever understood the many meanings that it might carry because ‘home’ always felt like a loaded gun aimed at me. I envy the children I see around me with their parents and their balloons and their candies and their giggling. I envy every child I see – like that little boy on the train the other day, holding his mother’s hand and finding a safe place. Or the toddler who fell asleep on her father’s lap in the park and finding comfort. Maybe my cynicism goes too far when I see children. Or maybe I envy the possibility where love can reside in someone’s palm. I envy the palms that carry so much love; all I ever had were bruises.

We always had this worn out wall hanging back at home that said- “Home is where the heart is.” It’s true, home really is where the heart is if your heart happens to be as torn apart as the drawings I made for Papa when I was 8. I tore them when I turned sixteen, right after the day he found out that I was not the son he had wanted me to be. Son. Daughter. I was a mere child who wanted to be held by someone and feel the love that could reside in those palms. I tore my drawings the day after Papa folded his palm into a fist and Mumma locked all her words in her jewellery box. I tried to place my heart in those four walls, but it was smashed and swept away before anyone else could see. My heart was a totem of shame and it needed to be discarded the same way Mumma would throw away broken glass – bad omens need to be taken care of after all.

Home is where I lost my heart and tore off all my drawings. Home is a gun loaded with guilt and pain and shame.

Mumma tells me she misses me and the house feels empty without me. I miss her too but our conversations have been as empty as the house – the house that has always felt empty to me. The creaking of the windows and the smashing of the doors was the only sound I can remember with the occasional shattering of plates during dinner instead of conversations. How can a place feel empty now when it had stopped feeling whole a long time ago? Where did the familiarity of home go?

It’s as if I woke up from a long sleep and I missed out on something and suddenly, familiarity was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t in the books or the childhood photos or the toys Dadi would get me. I looked for her in the woods of my hometown, between the roots and the branches; between the trees that felt like the strangers looking at me when I walked down the street. I looked for her in the roads less taken and the ones not taken at all and the one which everyone chose to go down. She wasn’t there in Papa’s car or Mumma’s Christmas brownies or Didi’s Bollywood songs. I went out to look for her in forgotten places and in places I can’t forget – like this little bookstore I visited way too often or the abandoned house where I kissed a boy for the first time. She is gone. I try to replace her with some semblance of nostalgia but it does not feel the same. Without her, home is nothing but empty walls. It feels like I have lost a friend.

I don’t know when I’ll be going back to my parents’ house. I don’t think I want to go back ‘home’ but how do I tell this to Mumma. I miss her and I know she misses me too but I can’t forget. I just can’t forget. I took the easier way, the road that most people prefer – an excuse. It is easier to navigate through lies when your truth is too heavy for the ones you love. After all, how can I find my way back when I have never had someone to hold my hand?

So for now, I am here in my room even when I am barely able to pay the rent. I am here within these walls and windows sitting on this cold marble floor and I am making a blueprint instead of a map. This blueprint is of a room where the sun does not hide and smiles at me through the windows during early mornings. This room is where I sit during the evenings after coming back from work and I wait for a better day. The bed is warm and soft and I get to decorate the walls with my drawings and paintings. I sit here at night and read until it is too late for me to sleep and I hurry myself off to work the next morning. I listen to my favourite Lorde and Mitski songs as loud as I want with no care in the world. I place my palms on the floor and I let them heal and I let them grow, like placing a baby plant in a new pot. I let myself be and I ‘un-become’ everything. Slowly I become more familiar than I ever could be.

I sit and I wait and I breathe. I know this room is under construction and it will take some time before it is complete. But this room is where I could be anything I want – this room is where my heart is, this room is my home.