The Year All The Heroes Live

today we leave this town called Sadness
we abandon all that we know about loss.
once we break the horizon, we build a
new city. call it hope. bend the streets

in the shape of our name. Name each one
of them after everyone we love. Love every
single person that moves in. The welcome
sign reads: “survival stops here. living begins”

today we stop the bleeding. we don’t ignore
the flesh wounds or the family members,
we move into a house and the welcome mat
reads: “It’s okay to love yourself. It’s okay

to let someone love you while you learn
how to. It’s okay to love them back in the
meantime.” You move in together and
The welcome mat reads: “It’s okay.”

I know it’s hard to believe.

yesterday was a riot shield that you’d always
run into head first, bloody knuckles second.
finger on the trigger and signature on the barrel
that always read “is this the only way home?”

I know that yesterday is a map leading back
to the places you promised you’d never go
back to, it’s covered in salt and the compass
reads “It’s only downhill from here.”

Yesterday is a shadow. A skeleton closet
that haunts you for science, filled to the brim
with bones and flesh, all of which belong to you
– all the you that you’ve carved from yourself

and you think that you’ve lost it forever.
yourself, that is.

there’s a reason the body keeps building.
a reason the cells always come back
brand new. Scars were never a sign of
tragedy. They were always a sign of healing –

always a sign that read “Even when the mind
has abandoned all hope, the body demands
to exist.” You are your mind and your body.
Even when you’ve given up, you haven’t.

today is a notebook that you’ll always run
into bloody heart first, restless mind second,
finger on the pencil; and the first page reads
“If I can’t write it out of me, I’ll just try again”

Today is a blank page. a sunrise. the sign
you’ve always been looking for, the one
reason you needed to wake up today —
the just enough, the even more than that.

today we get our warmth back. Our darkest
days have failed to kill us and thus we shine
brighter – like the sun, barely escaping a black
hole, but still shining on every single thing.