Peace

By: Alexis Renée

​I sought Peace on the congested streets of my consciousness and in my letters to God. 

Is it a sepia paint that coats nefarious sins and premature loss of innocence, allowing you to have nostalgia?

Is it a crane that lifts the bricks off your chest in the morning?

Is it a hand that weeds trauma and tends only to your daffodils and daisies?

Is it the company of your chosen family?
The understanding layered in their silence, the absence of judgment in their arms. 

Is it the funeral of deadly thinking?

Is it the call you never get from a doctor?

Is it the epiphanies that grow into the revelation of another birthday?

Or is it a monogamous relationship? 
It does not compete for you, it has no true rival, and it will not be branded with a scarlet letter? 

If this is fact, then to live in me is a stone-worthy affair.

I did not know how many loose ends were in my possession until my ventriloquist sent neurons as a laxative to the shadows.

How was I to know the casket was empty?

I would wait until I am one with the concrete but Peace does not live in roadkill.

So how do I fix my streets?

Do I have to carry all of these burdens?

Is it really all my fault?

Maybe if they called 511, if they didn’t beep their horns and take the back roads, 
I could safely wander.

But grudges are another affair and I need to end these open relationships.

I need to drop off the hitchhikers and travel on different roads.

I need to forgive myself.

Then my flowers will bloom.