lovingharolddeactivated

i can’t stop thinking about how malcolm, jb, and willem built a home for jude. malcolm, the architect, physically builds jude a home. a home that’s easily accessible for jude without making jude feel less than. malcolm, who built it with respect for jude and his space, adjusting the home to fit jude, when all jude’s life, he has had to adapt to everything else. jb, who is as opposite to jude as one can be, but especially through his artistic endeavors, as opposed to jude’s upright, logistical, methodical ways. jb provides jude with pieces to decorate his home, sealing in the fact that this is his home. because home is when we dare fasten the nail in the wall, when we dare indulge in decor, for these things signify permanence, signify the roots one begins to plant. the decorum is unmoving; it stays there until someone chooses to take it down; it is stability. it is the reassuring presence that is there when jude leaves and remains when he comes back. and last of all, there is willem, the sole warm body jude shares his space with, a body that arguably loves jude more than he loves himself, a body so overwhelmingly kind and careful. and what is home, if not for a safe space, a space filled with comfort, a space shared with and sustained by love? so of course, with their absences, jude crumbles. his best friends, in their respective ways, come together to make a home for jude. when malcolm and willem are gone, when jb is at a distance, the space loses its safety, comfort, love. home is no longer home. home crumbles from the missing pillars that have held it up for so long