People in Places. Places in People.

a house is just red bricks and settled dust

till someone chooses to settle there

and then it’s moted light beaming through the kitchen window

and conversations over hot porridge after a long day

and lazy weekends spent on the couch with an old movie and an old friend

and the floor creaking under your tiptoed midnight rendezvous

and a place where memories find an address.

and you,

you are just bones and blood

till you walk in through doors as one person and leave as another,

and you’re six and you’re waiting for school to end when you can run across the street with your father and eat ice-creams for lunch,

and then you’re ten and the sharp edges of the coffee table at your grandma’s house gives you ten stitches and a new story,

and you’re fifteen and have your first date in the café down the street and now it’s the only place where desserts taste sweet,

and you’re twenty-two, sitting in the park, alone for the first time, watching people pass by as you sit and stare and cook up stories in your head,

and now, you’re bruises and butterflies…

people and places

are just people and places

till the other burns a whole in the space that used to be unoccupied and unfulfilled

and makes the wind blow where there once used to be still, stale air.