Flowers and Front Porch Steps

Flowers and Front Porch Steps I come from the painted front porch of my first house That is tainted with my laughter like the colors It blooms in the summertime, like the weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk That the kids used to pretend were flowers Well eventually we realized that the flowers were indeed weeds. And I come from the weeds that bloomed around our minds like the crowns we used to wear The vines that grew up and up and around And the flowers that grew inside ourselves that withered away in the storm that destroyed our toy houses and cars I come from the drunken chant of my father through his blurry vision And the whistling chorus of his whispers that shatter into shouts on that night in the snow I pace my room back and forth trying to rewrite the chorus and learn the words by heart Just to have a song to sing The words come out right for the first time in my life and I hope to God it’s real this time And I come from the voices that sang me to sleep every night despite him That bloom like the flower weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk And as I stand on the tainted and painted front porch of my first house It feels nice to be home.