Living life is a painting scheme,
Creating colors to cover up the blanks,
Trying our best to break away.
We re-saturate,
The bleak shades of our face,
Replacing something organic,
With chemical compounds.
Suddenly evolving beyond natural gleam,
Distorting to fit twisted cookie cutter shapes,
We execute the order,
Of this lustful modern god.
There was beauty in the earthen iron's shape,
Forgotten glory, bent to grim reality,
Turning away from standing in the looking glass,
Becoming indistinguishable again.

I used to think
home had a door.
A key.
A roof that remembered my name.

But I’ve lived in places
that never made space for my silence.
Places that knew my footsteps
but not my fears.

I carry pieces of home
in chipped mugs,
in songs that smell like childhood,
in people I no longer speak to.

Sometimes, home is a voice,
cracked with laughter
in a place I had to leave.

Sometimes, it’s a moment
sunlight on tired skin,
or the way someone says
“You can rest here.”

I’ve learned
that belonging doesn’t always mean staying,
and leaving doesn’t mean forgetting.

Home isn’t always where you were born.
Sometimes,
it’s where you stopped pretending.
I don’t know if I’ve found mine yet.
But I know what it isn’t.
And that’s something.

I see the shape of things
As they shift
And slowly change.

I feel the weight it brings
As they chisel
And carve their names.

As the clouds move through their lives
They stretch, and pull apart.
No cloud will ever be the way
It was back at its start.

Maybe we are as those clouds,
Reshaping as we go.
No need to be ashamed nor proud.
Simply travel where winds blow.

Maybe we could learn from them,
Who exist but do not fight.
Face reality with grace, and then
Do the same in the windy night.

Oh say, can you see?
As they carve up your rights
Ideals once proudly held,
Now lay gasping and bleeding.
Future pride and bright hopes
Face a perilous might;
Those who rampage through life,
Destroying and feeding.
Through the raucous and flare
Declaring justice “unfair”,
Lacking proof that they’re right,
But they don’t seem to care.
Oh say, do you still think yourselves free and brave?
Or is it the land of the fee
And the home of the depraved?

Grey clouds crack open, weeping angels,
rain cascades, a liquid broom
washing earth's filth and sin.
The smell? Enigmatic—spring's embodiment,
summer evening's bold scent.
Drops like strings, smacking,
a hundred clapping hands under a faucet.
The wind keeps pace, whooshing,
shaking excess from leaves.
Tires glide on wet slick,
cars pass like crashing waves.

Peaceful, serene, innocent, refreshing.
Cold strings, exploding like macro water grenades,
rejuvenate skin.
A wonder to stare at, always.
Whether three, experiencing first cognizance,
or thirty-one, marveling.
Rain, a majestic measure of universal peace
in a world of chaos and noise.
Chaotic itself, like a jazz band drumming,
wind wailing past windows—
yet so serene.

Still, rain brings annoyance.
Bones ache, joints lock and creak,
and a youthful strut turns rusty tin-man waltz.
But its mysticism deafens pain
and frees the mind to fly.
Clarity, a rare enigma,
tickles skin raises arm hairs,
kisses lips with reality,
appearing ****, flirting with prismatic curves—
often ignored, and unnoticed.
Euphoria is splendidly remiss.

So easy to catalog memories,
reflect in life's mirror,
and determine what needs changing.
Everything changes with time.

Life, a garden.
We inherit seeds of knowledge,
plant interesting parts.
Love and sadness water, shine on plants
bearing flowers we call friends:
tulips, lilacs, dangerous roses.
Unique: blue, orange, red, white, pink.
Some sweet, some foul.
Each one is unique.
Flowers grow wild and wilt on vines.
Some aren't flowers, but weeds,
diseasing what they touch, like death.
Covered in insects, eroding beauty.
As a gardener, you decide:
anarchic disarray?
Or grab shears, and prune ugliness.
Friends who matter won't let your soul wilt.
Yes, rainfall brings such clarity.

But clarity's bubbles are superficial.
Easily burst, window closing, smog reconfiguring.
A bowling ball rolls across the sky and strikes pins—
a lucky strike.
Tree branches of light shoots extend,
lasts a second, and seems slower.
Adrenaline rushes, heart pounds like a drum.
Seconds pass, another strike, another flash.
A storm had come...
and it would pass.