HERE, THE TRUTH STARTS

We sit here.
stare at each other here.
we are uncomfortable
in a cramped living room that swallows our voices whole.
our intents hide behind our conversations
revealing themselves unknowingly
reaching around to open, then close and to open again.
just as children’s peak-a-boo
it sees us.

Here.
years before the layers of wallpaper peeled rebelliously against the walls
years before every corner was filled with the weekly flea market finds
years before the dinged curtains faded from the heat of the southern suns
you stood and told me your dreams.
you were passionate and steadfast in them.

Now, in the corner of this room
you play with the masking tape on the lazy-boy arm.
you adjust your body spilling off the edge
(I don’t know this new body or the face that now belongs to it)
and you tell me what you think I want to hear.

Here.
there is no living.

In this space, my heart helps me speak.
pushes syllables together against the silence.
spews softly framed words suspended into our air
above the mist of darkness and far past its boundaries.

In this space, light reluctantly shines through.
forms cracks in the stillness.
paints silhouettes of our truths.
years after your path was muddied by our ancestors’ sweat and tears
years after you were self-defined by the doubts echoed by the world
years after your life experiences scattered remnants of your past’s future
and still I see the child that I loved as my own and the man I’ve yet to know.

Here in this room.
The truth starts.