and the next time you see him

and the next time you see him
his cardboard box
his mansion,

his black trashbag

his walk-in closet,

his outdated newspapers

his tip-top insulation,

and his grocery cart

the attic where he stores all things precious

stare into his eyes

go past the hollowness

and try to see the good.

light the fire that was extinguished

keep going past the layers of sadness and despair

and walk three miles in his shoes.

and the homeless man lives in a mansion

with an attic filled with memories, the only things he can keep.

what AP Euro taught me

today in AP Euro we grouped words like "magic, spring, summer, ghosts, blood, revolution, love, passion" into different colors. summer was yellow, blood and revolution were red, spring was green. but what i learned was that there was so much beyond the "word".
passion isn't just red. passion is agony. like a heart that has burst, like lungs that have run out of air, pain ripping at every part of the body. unfulfilled happiness, crying tears of gratitude.
and summer. a sticky yellow, a blinding yellow. every pore soaking up the sun. eyes squinting, face scrunched up, laziness overcoming perfection.
and love. love is passion, but love is worse than agony. love is blind. love is deaf. love runs out of control and crashes into a million little pieces, worth less than the broken beer bottle in the sidewalk gutter. and every time it rains, more of the memory washes down the drain. yes, fulfilled love is red. but a broken heart, stiched poorly together, patched by a blind man- that love is gray.