Strong foundations, sturdy walls;
I thought I lived in a house of stone.
Storms came and knocked it down
And now I sit here, all alone.
Huddled against the cold and wind,
My shelter tumbled to the floor.
Home was just a house of cards,
And will protect me nevermore.

Family should have been a blanket,
Woolly, warm, with hardy weft;
Instead it was a paper napkin,
Now shredded to bits, there’s nothing left.
Bare, I wander this empty ruin,
Cutting my feet on debris shards.
I was deceived by the promise of pillars,
But home was just a house of cards.

I wrote the first verse of this poem when I was a teenager; the second verse, I wrote today, a solid twenty years later. I expect it’s the kind of poem I could continue to add verses to for years, if I felt so inclined. I can only say about it that some wounds don’t heal. Some only fester, for decades, and the only thing to do is carry that decay around with you, hoping against hope it will just lay dormant inside and not metastasize.