'Maybe it was the journey all along.'
I laugh,
Didn't seem like it at first,
But I guess the treasure was the friends we made along the way.

I will stay with you,
Even when the times are hard,
We can make stone soup.

Lay dormant on my lap,
Hand on thigh,
Butterflies.

You make my heart race,
Laying across my,
Own

Tucked under watch of a recent town,
Nourishing raindrops trickle down,
Steady on, a boy works the land,
For none here would eat, 'cept by his hand,
Through the night and on to the morn,
He works alone as a new day is born,
Digging, raking, and sowing,
Soon labor's fruits are growing,
Dread spring flood or autumn gale,
He tends the earth in heat or hail,
To find to reap, the sweetest feat,
To give others, his crop to eat.

Your self sabotage is a transient orchestration
in soft pursuit of a potent vexation,
juggling vices as a decade old
one trick pony
circling pastures to meet itself
in the middle of an argument;

You’ll dawdle in the toy aisle,
linger in the doorway,
and parse the wounds of
a family member standing afield;

It could end when you let it,
yet the turmoils have you rattled
like a baby shower gift
presented in glass,
refracting sandy memories
that turned to pleas by a
roadside marquee;

Lone hotel escapades
with uncertainties
set sights on useful
youthful hastenings
brigaded into shoe boxes,
skipped lunches,
and a forgotten birthday
and ripple harm into a harmful world
while we reel at the
second hand trauma
which announces your presence;

The countless open-minded scars
that set you apart
can consume all but echoes,
reminiscent of muddy punk tunes
appearing out of thick air
and plucked with the vengeance
of a forsaken child
who never had enough candles to
blow out,
who conceded happiness to pollinate
fall out,
who branched into nothing to escape
burn out
and who stitched longings into trials
that all end with the conviction
of a jealous ghost

Out in the cold
Nohow to be bold
Fate be to walk
Havin nowhere to go.

Out in the cold
But count the hours
From sunset to dawn
Days till winters gone.

Out in the cold
Nohow to be bold
Nothing else to know
But how many below.

Out in the cold
Wondering coats
On the frozen road
Some home they call.

Out in the cold
Nohow to be bold
Til mornin of morrow
Til the kingdom comes

Through pain and hardship, strength is grown,
Where courage blooms from seeds unknown.
It’s easy to forget the fight,
That forged their hearts within the night.

The strongest souls bear hidden scars,
Their battles waged in silent wars.
Yet walls are built, and hearts made true,
With every storm they battled through.

Now confidence, like stone, remains,
A quiet fire, fed by pains.
From broken ground, they rise and stand—
The toughest hearts, the gentlest hands.