When I was a little boy
My father told me
You will never be a doctor
Because you suck at science.
When I was 8 years old
I scraped my knees on expectations
That were never my own
And looked for home
In the smile of every stranger
That didn’t shout at me.
Every absence of a fist
Felt like a kiss
Until I learned that words
Carried their own poison.
I learned to build a home in books
To crawl into the worlds between letters
And drink them in until I could forget…
I cannot tell you of my childhood
Too many memories are like sand
I grab at smoke that settles
Like grains of time too swift.
I’d stop to smell the roses
But her hands were covered in that scent
And everytime I blink
I can’t erase her laughter from the pain.
Don’t ask me to feel at home
When walls have only ever kept me out
Kept me in cycles of forgetting
That life is actually living…
Instead of waiting for an end.
Moonlit Poetry 