Hot sidewalk beneath my feet

Cheap wine sloshes and stains my favorite coffee cup

Hot sidewalk beneath my feet, sticky summer air envelopes me like an unwanted embrace

But is comforting all the same

The sun blazes down on us all like a deity disappointed with our mistakes

Home is a beautiful disaster

Every fault of our father;

Every kiss from our mother;

Meet like a delightfully chaotic tryst between Boreas and Persephone

Clashes of brilliant lightning rippling through a sailor’s pink sky

And gusts of liquor soaked rage

Some things don’t make sense, have never made sense, but are familiar all the same

Roars of laughter, that turn into an overturned dinner table;

Beer stained eyes look through us, piercing our youthful will

This is the bedrock and the beginning

Lessons in humanity

The dreamers have it the worst

Crippled by what could have been, and what could still be

We lived like we were dying

And some of us were

Too in love with Morpheus’ musings

Time changes very little

Failures, victories, and everything in between

Ever a timid little bird, too ruffled for sophistication

Frizzy tangled hair, stained t-shirt

Able to see past dirty faces, into the hearts of broken men

The beauty is in the broken

Home taught me this

My mother taught me this

The hock shop held our history, for the price of tuna casserole and lights on

The effervescent beauty of a woman is dimmed

When met with a broken dreamer

Whose grandiose visions fell to the bottom of a gas station paper bag

Callous love has etched crags and creases across her brow

But that is home

No hungry bellies, no opportunity missed

For our mother’s love persisted through the tempest

Like a worn temple, broken but rebuilt

And the beauty is in the broken