Our Home

A reflective sestina essay about housing and home that swirls the reader down.

For the past few months, my partner and I have been looking for a dream house. We’re not looking to buy, just to rent because we know that housing isn’t permanent. It is a wish we make to the land to keep us from the storm. Well, after months, we got just that, our wooden walls. And oh, how wood, trim, and carpet all meet to form the space held. To us, it’s more than enough which is great because space is something that is very important to both of us.

As it would be for any couple working from home with two cats in a place that measures from floor to chimney exactly US. For a while, I alone called this small space my house. Screamed into its depths from within that this place was no longer to be held. At least not by me alone for a time that felt permanent. That same old song that is bound to hit because it always hits right against that special winter arena of comfort held between heated walls. And in a space so small, there is no room to escape from the lonely storm.

No room to grow away from the storm. Together it’s different; there is no storm that can weather us, reach us, encapsulate us. Especially not in our new home whose array of color flashes warning to all the storms that they are being watched by these walls. Apart from the malfunctioning fireplace and blinds that never seem to line up with themselves perfect is the name I’d give this new house. But I feel the need to really stress that this house is not permanent. All things vanish that can be held.

Another thing that bares mentioning, is that this house, whenever I step inside of it, it hits me with new light, casting me into a different shade, and I can do nothing but stand back with my breath suspended, held. I’ve seen it in all kinds of weather, too, like overcast, sunny, and even caught it still in a storm. Winds sent the only decorations on the porch swinging, but all other parts remained permanent. Like us. We will fill the light with our yelling, running, shouting, and clawing at fixtures to make them more ours, to make this structure more our house. If these walls could talk, they wouldn’t be walls.

But we can make stones sing and birds swim within our own walls. We’ll show them what we mean during the moments of soft labor that can be held. And we’ll do it all over the house. That way they can see how we make winds through our house during our storm. However, I am getting distracted and ahead of myself because this isn’t about or for them, it is for us. The one thing in all of this that feels permanent.

Then again, what even is permanent? Is it the sun-splashed walls? The memories and days that connect us? I fear that it is everything that cannot be held. Here again, inside there howls a storm. Maybe, it will not get me if I keep up appearances, keep house.

That should be easy since that is something that I have, a house. Everything that can’t be held, I leave to be blown away by the storm. What remains will be momentarily held.

Aigner Loren Wilson is a queer Black SFWA, HWA, and Codex writer. Her work has appeared in Tor Dotcom, Better Humans, The Writing Cooperative, and more. She strives to help writers reach their publishing goals and attain their dreams. Subscribe for access to masterclass courses in writing, editing, and making a living as a writer.