House I Carry

I carry a house upon my back, A fragile frame of dreams and stone. Its windows cracked, its timbers black, But still I walk, and still alone. Each wall is built from words unsaid, From nights I stitched with fraying thread. Its roof is shingled with the dread Of all the tears I never shed. I pass through valleys, rivers wide, This house sways gently as I climb. It holds the ones I left behind, The echoes trapped in rooms of time. It shelters me from bitter rain, Yet weighs me down with silent years. A monument to love and pain, A quiet vault of hopes and fears. I cannot leave it on the shore, No matter how I long to flee. It is my burden, evermore, It is the marrow under me. And still I rise, though shadows press, And still I breathe beneath its beams. I learn to walk with weight and mess, To carve new roads from broken dreams. For though I carry walls of glass, I also carry seeds of spring. And somewhere deep, beyond the past, I carry hope. I carry wings.