Have you heard the house?
It shakes and sways,
Pulses and pounds,
like a heart of stone.

It still beats.

The windows steamed with hot breath,
The breath of summer.
Then crystallized with cool breath,
The breath of winter.

Inhaling those who hear it.
Exhaling, for those who have not been near it.

Its doors creak and clamor,
Painted with pale pasts.
Inside, are florescent futures
Along with revived lives.
And still,
the doors are always open.

Spiced cloves steep aloft,
after simmering in their froth.
Sauntering from the house,
and along the deep corners of your mind.

Home to scents, seasons, and sounds.
Overflowing and exposing,
Pouring forth its essence of life.
It stands tall among dreary days
Amid the flames, floods, and fury.

Now, have you heard the house of life?


Then, why do you never visit!

The world may think I am clay.
To be shaped and formed
Molded to its ideals.
Conform.

Yet, I am stronger than clay.

It may think I am stone.
Heavy enough to throw with accuracy.
To let me drown.
Sink down to its
rivers,
lakes,
oceans,
level.

Yet, I am lighter than stone.

It may think I am cork.
Able to be punctured and poked
with words and assumptions.
Float along traditional paths.
To wield intoxicated dreams
sealed
and
hidden.

Yet, I am sturdier than cork.

I am not clay, stone, nor cork.
I am not material.
I am flesh and feeling.
I am thought and sense.
I am underestimated by the world.

Crumpled leaves scrape the dewy road
Petrichor wafts through the air
I follow the scent and the sound.

Leading me along this path-
Petrichor, crumpled leaves.
Wandering and waiting.

Frozen wind pushes me forward
I try to keep up,
But I never can.

Outside my bedroom window,
alluring noises beckon to me.
The wind howls.
The wolves howl.
The whistles howl.
They echo and linger,
these elements of wildness and freedom.

Laughter and yelling dispelling the silent air.
Wind whimpering from branch to branch.
Skateboards rustling down my street.
Wolves whining with wilted frames.
Owls hooting nature warnings.
Whistles piping from foggy trains.
Engines hot and roaring,
tearing through the heat of asphalt cities.

Forcing me outside-
inch by inch,
sound by sound.

Pulling me towards the world:
Curiosity calling.
Wind, wolves, whistles.
Sirens, sounds, surrounding.

One tear fell.
Was it for me?
Or you?
I can never tell.

Although, it could have been for other things:
The despair that eats at me.
Maybe, that one rotten grape.
The bird with its broken wing.

Perhaps, the last hour of sunlight.
The silence that speaks to me.
That shattered relationship.
All of the ones who never awake from the night.

Possibly, the people writing poems of pain.
That fear that incessantly nips at me.
Or the yelling in the next room.
The brown hills and lack of rain.

Maybe, it was the impoverished streets.
The glances of shame thrown to me.
A picture frame collecting dust.
That smoldering fire without heat.

How about the unspoken words?
The lost feeling that always finds me.
Those sparks flying from a dying flame.
The people who move in herds.

It could be his intoxicated sighs.
This regret that simply stares through me.
The music heard, but never listened to.
Their sunken eyes.

What about those unopened shutters?
The loneliness that befriends me.
Frost bitten foods.
The toy left in the gutter.

Maybe, it was that penny on the asphalt.
The mirror that shuns me.
That unread book screaming from the shelf.
All of the traffic at a halt.

Could it have been the nights without dreams?
This longing that hangs onto me.
Those burnt bits at the bottom of the oven.
The things that break at the seams.

It could have been for anything,
everything, and
nothing.