What does home mean to you?

I have no home. I'm technically homeless currently.

What does home mean?

    A home could be the place someone lives. So a home could be a house, a prison, a concentration camp. Home could be a bench on Hollywood Boulevard, an abandoned warehouse, or a box on a street corner. Home could be a sewer, or a muddy hole in the middle of a war zone. And what about frequent travelers? Is their home in all the places they sleep and eat? Is their home the journey itself or the destination? What about a pilgrim? Is the pilgrimage home, or is home the holy site?
    A home is usually viewed as the place someone comes from, but what does that mean? The place someone was born? The place someone grew up? The DNA of a person’s parents? Can a person’s home change, or is it something they’ll never escape? Does everyone have a home? If home is not a place, but an idea, what sort of idea is it, and can one ever truly be there? They say home is where the heart is- but what does that mean? If one’s heart is in turmoil or despair, is that home?
    No, no, home is not something magical and warm. Home can be lonely and cold and trapped in a blizzard. Home breathes winter nights, thunders maelstroms, crashes lightning rods. How can someone escape a nightmare-home? The children dying slow deaths of AIDS in Africa, surrounded by violence, stained with blood. Veiled women locked in silence by the oppressive Taliban. Home can be a place of violence and fear. Loneliness and sorrow. An empty place filled with strangers who look past you and never really see you. A place of turmoil. A home is glass shattering, breaking, crashing. Snapping like bone. The abode of fear, terror. A place so thick with tension it’s hard to even breathe. Home is a burden to bear, a secret to hide. From everyone. Forever.