The Gordian Knot?
¹ The mesh of civilization.

To untie it is to understand it,
To know it.
This is to TIGHTEN it.

To cleave it is to try to conquer it;
It all comes undone,
Never to be re-strung.

You can be Prometheus,
Who was actually always celebrated,
Or you can be Aeneas -
The one who was really ChAINhed to the rock.

What matters is learning,
² All else is for naught.

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?