Beneath familiar soil

As a child,
the place choked me
air thick with pollen and unwashed wool,
heads sunk, ostrich-deep, in dust.

Chores bloomed like weeds
after a hard rain,
no end to their grasping roots.
My words were moths
they swatted from their light,
each question a spark
they doused with frowns.

No face echoed mine,
no path led out.
With excuses thin as frost,
I fled to cities
where streetlights erased the stars,
believing distance could unmake me.

I found my kin
in the hum of crowded nights,
and for years,
forgot the weight of where I began.

But time stacks stones
on the chest,
sleep a thief,
pulse a drum without rest.

On a rare return,
the irony unfolds:
here, of all places,
I breathe.
Sleep wraps me,
soft as the childhood I never held.

Beneath this unyielding soil,
peace hums, a root I never knew.

FSF