# House Without a Home

I have searched for home
inside houses built with my name,
yet every room echoed
like I was an apology
someone forgot to finish.

Tell me—
how long must a man survive
before survival stops being
the only language he speaks?

My hands have carried wars
they never declared.
My shoulders know the weight
of other people's sins,
while they stand in spotless white
calling themselves saints,
washing blood from their palms
with borrowed scripture.

I am tired.

Not the kind of tired
that sleep can ransom.

The kind that tempts a gentle soul
to become something colder—
to trade compassion
for calculation,
to study every wound
until empathy becomes another weapon.

The dark whispers,
*"They deserve what is coming."*

And for the first time,
I do not argue.

I have seen enough of the spirit
to know the sky remembers.
I have heard enough silence
to recognize judgment
before thunder learns its name.

Yet I no longer feel compelled
to warn the deaf.

There are evenings
I imagine the fires of consequence
rising on horizons I did not build,
and I would simply sit,
light another blunt,
and let destiny finish
the conversations
I have repeated for years.

Not because I hate them—

Because I have exhausted
every language love possesses.

Must love always be the one
bleeding?

Must mercy forever kneel
before mockery?

No.

The world mistakes gentleness
for surrender.
It mistakes patience
for permission.

But love...

Love cannot be murdered.

You can crucify its messengers.
You can exile its poets.
You can laugh while breaking
the hands that reach for you.

Still—

Love survives.

It grows through cracked sidewalks.
It sings beneath prison floors.
It waits inside the hearts
everyone declared beyond repair.

I know.

Because they tried to bury mine.

What remains of me
is not revenge.

It is reflection.

If I ever show you my heart,
do not mistake its scars
for weakness.

Every fracture
is a window.

Every silence
is a prayer that outlived its prophet.

I wanted so little—

A place where my nervous system
could finally unclench.

A door that welcomed me.

A table without betrayal.

A home
that didn't ask me
to earn the right
to exist.

Until that day arrives,
I will keep becoming
what hatred could never manufacture.

Because darkness
has studied me
my entire life—

and still
it could not teach me
how to kill love.