Places.

They say you should never find your home in a person, for all that ever leads to is homesickness. People change, people leave, people move. Make your home some place steady. Make your home at places. That way, when all people scatter and you feel stranded, you can always go back to land and own it; feel a familiar ground beneath your feet and love the gravity for its pull. Believe me, there is no worse advice.

I am a lover of places. I wear my heart on my sleeve and fall in love with land. With the bumps and the stones, with the grass and the trees, with the landmarks and signposts, with the walls and their windows, with the broken windowpane that no one fixed, with that one dust bunny that has always been around, with the patch of sky that forms the highest domed ceiling of the world, with the buildings under-construction, with the buildings declining, with corridors that give off whiffs of grime, with the clock that's been stuck at 2pm all this time, with food that you can't eat if you've seen being cooked, with library books, with all staircases and all corners, all nooks, with the morning air that only smells like that there. If you've ever seen how it looks when it rains there, you would know what I'm talking about.

I am a lover of places. When we moved out of our last house, I cried for weeks. I said 'take me home, please.' And when they told me this was my home now, I cried even harder. These walls will never be those walls. This floor will never be that floor. I look out the window and don't see what I used to see. This is not my home.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, and it's graduation day. I walked in here feeling displaced and in four years I've given my heart to a place, yet again. People say, move on! This is how long this was supposed to last. I only hear: don't love, don't love, don't love. Never fall in love with places. People you can take with you, places are stubborn; they won't budge. It hurts more walking away. Being left will always be easier than leaving. I have the power to stay here a bit longer. This thought will drive you mad. Is it better to stay and let it get deeper under your skin, or should you worry about how much more it is going to bleed then and rip it out now? While you can? While you can see it stirring your thickest vein?

When two people part ways, the world says:  'There are plenty of fish in the sea'. I read a poem once that said: 'and if she was the ocean? There are seven of those too' See, that's where the poet was wrong. Even if there were seven million oceans on planet Earth, home would be your place of birth. Not where you were literally born but where you built yourself. For you, there would always be that one ocean you want to swim in, jump in and die in. The poet was wrong.

I am a lover of places, and that's the worst kind of love there is. It's invisible, intangible. Your beloved stays where she is; you change, you leave, you move and being left will always be easier than leaving.