Back to Hometown

I return,
not merely walking familiar streets,
but tracing the version of myself
left behind in dust and memory.

That narrow alley is still the same,
with children’s laughter that never truly left,
and voices calling in the evening light
as if time never learned to age.

That house — 
its paint may be fading,
but its embrace remains whole,
holding the warmth of my childhood.

I stand at the doorway,
between then and now,
between what was lost
and what quietly waits to be found again.

In this town,
I am no one special — 
just a child returning home,
carrying a longing never quite finished.

And as night slowly falls,
I realize — 
a hometown is not just a place,
but a piece of the heart
that always knows the way back.