There are no more jarring jabs and hateful rhetoric spewed seasonally around kitchen tables
but the heaviness of a course of common burnt clay bricks push down on my heart instead
There’s no more lying and manipulation that gaslit dry childhood wounds due to surnames and labels
but the emptiness that other connected humans experience is a sandstorm wall in my soul instead
There’s no more scoffing or sulking or secrets left to keep by kinfolk without real relations just fables
but the family I’ve looked for eludes me and my mind is a lighthouse where no boat can dock instead
and still, it is better than
all the strife I’m avoiding
whenever we pretend to be people
that love one another fully
because that is only an idea
built from delusional concrete blocks
painted with roses in my head…instead