The Multidimensional Human Being

Home

What is home to you?

Is it by the sea?

Does it have a big backyard with a willow tree?

Is it where you gather with loved ones to celebrate your brother turning three? Who lives in your home?

Does it shelter you?

Is it where you’ve grown?

When everyone leaves the dinner table

And there’s no one in this room but me,

I release the facade that everyone else recognizes.

When I’m by my lonesome

I can finally breathe.

I put on my boa and look in the mirror.

I look at who I ought not be.

Red feathers fall around me,

As I let out my relief in a scream.

I’ve always been who they wanted to see.

I know they’ll never understand the real me.

I’ve been wearing the skin of an imposter for so long

It feels foreign to see myself as I truly am.

But what joy!

What joy it feels to be free!

To be completely me without any fear of rejection

From a society that taught me that I should never seek my own identity. That I should not own my body.

That I should never show my sadness or my pain.

If I lived my life according to the will of others,

Then that’s a life lived in vain.

I built this home.

Unknowingly, I forged every bone.

My blood circulates through the vents.

My thoughts are free to roam through any room.

Because here, my thoughts are solely my own.

I am in control.

I have lived a life of feign and shame.

No.

More.

I refuse to destroy this nest of self-love,

I accept myself for everything I am.

Every crack, every stain, every creaky window pane.

My home is within me.

It’s where I feel the most at peace.

I will no longer allow others to fix me up.

The only thing that was ever broken was a promise to myself; To always be true to me.

This house is too strong for any brick thrown.

My body is a temple.

My body is my home.

Strike Out,

Concept: Nia Alexander, Alessandra Cruz

Writer: Nia Alexander

Digital Staff on site: Amy Dantin, Diane Fish, Leah Davis, and Sydney Tindall

Photographer: Abigail Blascovich

Makeup: Becca Short

Models: Ramone Nelson, Darby Lestin, and Alex Pittman

Tallahassee