Your hair is just like your feet.
It never knows which direction it's going in.
And the only thing bigger than your brown eyes,
Are your little arms when you hold them out to your sides
Reading "Pick me up!"
You can't talk yet, but I hear you say so many things.
We named you Faith.
Which is ironic because it's something
This family is lacking.
I swear all your brothers hate each other
I'm one ***** on the neck away from moving out
And your parents are one sigh away from saying
"Let's just call it quits."

You're not even one and we've cheated you out your childhood
Like when a man cheats on his wife
We didn't really know how much heartbreaking we were fixin' to do.
It's unfair.
It's unfair how you're the only one who still smiles in these hallways
In the hallway, there's this big gray smudge that covers the wall
From when my baby brother decorated it with Crayola's
And my mom spent a week trying to get it off
But she never could.

In my opinion, that's the best ******* family portrait we are ever going to paint!
It's proof history can never be erased, no matter how much try to get rid of it, or ignore it
It's a ******* to the perfect white walls of a "perfect" white family
The dark smudge on the walls is the writing my parents will never see
The fact that it's still there after three years is proof,
That you can never stifle a child's creativity.
It's the worse excuse for a family portrait
But this house sure as hell isn't perfect in the inside.

I rather come from a broken home than be in one.
I rather remember this house when it was at it's best and leave
Then live a day to day reminder that it's never going to be that way any more.

I swear the last time my brothers and I got along was when I was five
And we pretended they were my puppies and I would feed them scraps form the table
Kids do weird **** sometimes.
Or when we'd walk around in our underwear and bathrobes
Pretending to be jedi knights with toy lightsabers
Walking around the house like it was our planet to protect.
And pretty soon I'm getting on the first rocket off this planet I can find.

The only thing that holds me back is that I feel like
I'm cheating you out one less older brother.
Trading my sister for an education and a paycheck.
A reality check.
That I can't be a kid forever.

But promise me you will try.
Promise me that whenever I come home you always will
Still have your arms outstretched wide open
Promise me you'll make mistakes and draw on walls
And explore your own planets
And that you'll be okay exploring them without me.
Promise me that when you're old enough to understand this poem
You'll write me back.
Promise me you'll be patient with mom and dad
Even though they seem like they aren't
Trust me. They're trying.
Trust me.
We named you Faith for a reason.

Is there a difference between whispers and screams?
This bombastic expulsion of soul...

To ears who might listen, or eternal silence.
hearts and minds are far from control.

I could trace the trail of heartbeats from where
yesterday began and be right back where I am,
but something's different
               (this is new and beautiful)

We stamp letters with the tiny feet, cook
chicken parmigiana meat, our timeline
means a lot because you're in it

(Here and now I'm feeling like I'm living deep
inside the house we picked)

I can almost taste it
     and I'm homesick.

Polished stone, bare *****- rafters loomed above
silent owls swooped, black before the dawn
red wood carved with sorrow's blood
masks to hide behind - some never found
So swift to pass upon the earth
ashes, silence underground
Diego painted the Santa Catalina's
mountains now hung upon a wall
have found him glorious
in the lost barrio

I find the places we have been
    miss us while we're away

for rivers to know laughter and then
          only the rush of water

            no parameters, no
         sense of urgency,
                
       nothing compares.

I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.

In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.

If you close your eyes in a loud night the the entire universe is open to however you wish to interpret. Our perception of this fragment is a blueprint or a painting in progress of ourselves; whichever your prefer it to be.
I opened my eyes in the night and looked out across the barren trees. Winter always seems like a sad and lonely coma for nature when green rarely exists and grey is the king on a silent throne.
The trees have fingers though and you can see them reaching for the heavens when the leaves have fallen into nothing.  They reach towards the sky in longing and patience and the stars are easier to see. The fading light from the long dead in the sky stretch out across time and space to try and reach the momentarily dead hands of earth and hold on tight.
It was beautiful and the drums behind my eyes pounded in tune with the orchestra of strings on the wind.