Dear 2022,

I will try to have hope for you.
I will try to hold you near.
I will try to love you.
And in return please be a dear.
Please don't let them hurt me.
Please hold me when my tears fall.
Please be there for me through it all.

And when it gets tough.
Let there be goodness.
Let there be love too.
And let hope blossom anew.
If you could do this.
We would all be extremely, entirely,
gratefully indebted to you.  

Sincerely,
Those hoping for something new

In the big red house
Lives a man of many words
Usually delightful
But with each bottle
The meaning and intentions blur

And once the bottles gone
No matter how polite
There's still a lingering memory
Of his words
From past
Drunken nights

On the floorboards
In the kitchen
One evening in the fall
Is where it all began to go wrong

As I stood there washing dishes
Beside me, he droned on
Each word, he nailed into me
Punctured deep into my skin
So forever and always
They would be lodged within

Water kept on flowing
From the facet
Drip, drip, drip
It wasn't until later
That the tears began to slip

A stranger came by after
Say hello, I did not do
And with that decision
More words were told anew

This time it was the father
Nailing words into my skin
Disrespectful, ungrateful
Might be packing up real soon

And so came the nights
Restless, tossing, turning
Scrolling through
Nearby homeless shelters
In case I got the boot

And even as the days passed by
And the days turned into months
I could never repair
The broken shards of my trust

So, even though I still live here
It will never be my home
When I still have to do dishes
In the room
Where it all began to go wrong