Today I see the world through a cloud of smog

I’d like to see things differently

But it's a tough task when beauty evades my very being



It is lost somewhere inside my flesh

Attempting to escape through my plain, gray concrete walls

It is barricaded by an exoskeleton of self-doubt



You have built so strategically



Insecurities and trepidations create a rapid cadence 

My beating heart is a soundtrack of my soul

Next to alcohol and demeaning slurs, then sirens

It is fast and unsteady 

This smog is suffocating me



Some days I feel a tingling strength accumulating in my bones

Fearlessness sows gardens of promise

Booze can't water plants

But no smog can stop a city oasis

Life can sprout through cracks in the sidewalk



Peonies bloom in time-lapse fashion

But as quickly as the sun rises to aid the blooming process

The buds close tight to the frigid uncertainty of the night

The cold shadows can consume a human being

We are afraid of the dark

But we can't avoid it

The midnight corners of who I am perpetually eclipse my sun



I wish time would decelerate 

When the flowers show their gently bold faces to the sky

I wish the smog would clear

And this hustle and bustle of city life 

Didn’t drown out a spring that wants to become summer



Will summer ever come for us?