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thoughts on world homeless day (October 10)

I was homeless once—
not metaphor, but pavement,
the night’s breath stiff with diesel,
a borrowed coat that never quite closed.
The city’s lights were not for me,
they glittered for windows I could not enter,
for tables where bread was broken
without my name.

I learned the grammar of benches,
the syntax of doorways,
the long pause of hunger
that makes even silence ache.
And still, the body endures—
it finds a corner,
it waits for dawn,
it bargains with cold.

But there is another exile—
homeless in a palace without you.
Marble floors echo louder than alleys,
chandeliers mock with their excess of light.
Every room is furnished,
yet emptier than a street at 3 a.m.
The bed is wide,
but no voice answers the turning.

This homelessness of heart
is less spoken of,
yet more corrosive:
to be roofed, clothed, fed—
and still unsheltered.

I was homeless once,
and I survived.
But I would not wish
the palace-emptiness on anyone.
Better the cold stone
than the warm room
where no one waits.

Poetry by anonface