𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬: “A House That Never Felt Like Home” by Angela Garilao

 

Published by: Athena Nicole Palatino

Date Published: October 7, 2025

Time Published: 11:40 AM

Category: Prose

Theme: Growing up in a house you could never call home. 

Home.

Such a simple word, and yet isn’t it strange how it can feel like a warm embrace to some, and like iron bars to others?

People keep asking why I never want to go home. As if “home” is still a word I can believe in. Because how do I tell them that my first heartbreak wasn’t a person, but the house I grew up in? That it wasn’t about love lost or promises broken, but about the kind of silence that weighs heavier than shouting. The kind of words that slice deeper than any blade on my wrist. And the kind of atmosphere that suffocates you even when you’re sitting still.

I learned early that not all homes are sanctuaries. Some homes are hidden battlefields, where every step is cautious, every silence heavy with the threat of explosion. Some are familiar-colored prisons, where the walls know your name but never your comfort.

That’s why I stay out late. That’s why I’d rather get lost in nameless streets than return to rooms that bruise me in many ways no one else can see—because sometimes the world outside, in all its chaos, holds me gentler than home ever did.

Home is supposed to be warmth, a refuge, a place where you can lay down your exhaustion and finally breathe. Mine was the opposite. Mine was a place that stole my breath, a place where comfort was rationed, where love felt like currency I could never afford. And maybe that’s the cruelest part: learning that the place you should have trusted the most was the first to teach you how love can wound.

And so I run. Not because I hate them. Not because I am ungrateful. I run because survival taught me that sometimes leaving is the only way to keep whatever pieces of yourself are left. I run because staying would mean shattering beyond repair.

They say home is where the heart is. But mine was where my heart was broken long before anyone else could touch it. And now, all I want is to find a place where “home” doesn’t carry the weight of wounds I never asked for.