his neighborhood

Because I don’t live there
I am thankful.

But when I shut my eyes
it’s no longer like waking up from a bad dream
that I can reason away.
Or like a song
that stops when the channel changes.

Every morning those faces return.
Every dawn, their darkness pulls my waking eyes
from one reality to another,
reminding me both exist as halves,
day and night.

This magnitude of hopelessness,
this magnitude of wasted potential,
a warm child sleeping in my arms
soaking into the fabric of this green oasis
won’t let me forget
that being thankful I wasn’t born there
doesn’t resolve what I left behind.







"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."
Winston Churchill