Homesickness

Hello from across a small pond and one or two cities :)

A poem I wrote while studying abroad in Toledo, Spain (where, inevitably, I have been reflecting on homesickness):

What happens when your home is sick yet you miss it?

What happens when the sick is home yet you can't escape it?

What happens when home and sick coexist?

If home is sick, what is healthy?

If sick is home, what is homelessness?

I'm homesick.

I'm sick for the sick home. I miss the sickness inevitable at home because I miss what holds the sickness.

Is it a sickness to want to be in a sick place? Or is it

human?

To want a home? To build a home? To be one?

If my home is sick, how dare I invite others inside? Is the sickness contagious? Will they catch the sickness I'm so desperate to have & so desperate to get rid of? Will they catch the sickness once they cross the threshold? Or when they first glimpse the sick home? Will they bring it back to their homes? Will their homes be forever sick? Will they resent my sickness & my home & my sick home once it has infected them & their homes, turning what was once home into a sick home? Will they also contract homesickness? Is homesickness a disease separate from a sick home or just a symptom of it? Will they succumb - in strength or weakness - to the sickness of their homes? Will they be crushed under the weight of the homesickness or the sick home? Or will they run from it - forfeit the home and the sickness and the homesickness for homelessness?

What is worse: to have a sick home or not have one at all?

I remain undecided as I continue to live outside of my sick home and surrender within it.