I remember being seven and scared,
The ground trembling to the sound of
A smash and the tinkling of broken glass,
My feet bare on the old wood floors,
My heart beats fast as the house sways
My eyes peeled listening to the awful things they say,
Hate resonating in the old bones of this house
I scrabble to the safe corner of my dim room
And papers start to scatter, and my favorite pen hold my
Trembling hand,
And years pass and pages burn ,
I learn to un-hear the awful words I heard.
I buried myself in books and
Sentences, in syllables in a million beautiful words.
I lost stray poems like bits of myself,
I forgot entire chapters of repeated
Life lessons and tried to unlearn
What the hard parts of life teach us.
Escaped to the far reaches, where hopelessness was
Dreadfully close but could never quite reach us.
I would have loved to read,
All the words I spread on empty white sheets,
All the lessons I’d have left for my older me
Stacked in high mountains on those old wood floors,
I would love to explore the lost chapters of myself,
I morn there loss like my childhood identity.
Perhaps every last page
was just one step closer to serenity.