Dear house, they painted over you in a colour you would hate.
Tomás Rendón · 5 min listen
September 15, 2026
Tomás Rendón reads the three letters. Recorded in Gainesville, Florida. Rain in the background is real.
I.
Dear house,
they painted over you in a colour you would hate.
The mango tree is a parking space now.
I still reach for your light switch
in every room I rent.
II.
Here, the neighbours ask where I am from
and then they wait,
as if the answer were a passport
I should hold up to the window.
III.
I will not come back, house.
Not because I do not want to,
but because you are not there
to open the door.
About the contributor
Tomás Rendón
Poet
From
Colombia / United States
University
PhD candidate in Anthropology
Tomás writes poetry and ethnography about Colombian families in the American South.
