I was built on unstable ground
Shifting sands as I ran towards the ocean
Arms reaching towards the vast and wavering wild
Challenging the waves
Give it all you’ve got you cannot knock me down
I learned to run when I was six years old
My hair manipulated into fussy braids that swung in front of my face
As I paced back and forth in front of the door
with a suitcase full of books
And waited for a taxi that would never come
I was built on burning asphalt and swing sets in sweltering summers
Escaping through eighteen different doors
Only to ride my bike in circles
And climb back under barbed wire fences
After wandering in cow fields and a home with a molding mattress
Where I was told people had *** before I knew what *** was
Returning to four walls to wash off the mud and blood
in glistening tubs and hope
That my mother would ask me where I had been
The neighborhood boys would play football in the eye of a hurricane
While I watched through cracked blinds
It only every rained on one side of the street
But the chalk on our sidewalks always washed away
No matter how many pictures of white picket fences
we etched into the concrete
I was built on not yet not finished not good enough this is not the one
this is temporary
Forests and muddy creeks became guarded iron gates
And I hid behind the pool bar to ash cigarettes
Into a Blue Moon
New marble countertops could not cover up the stench of desperation
And the echoes of gleaming empty halls
The sound of a ticking clock and pounding feet
My parents clinging to sand as it trickled through their grasping fingers
And I build castles with the remains