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it's this very spot; the center of the roof of my house, that somehow feels both like the middle of nowhere and the center of my universe every time i find myself sitting here, arms wrapped around my legs and chin resting atop my knees.

here i've laughed
here i've cried
sat on a turning earth
let it turn my day into night

i know if i looked down right now, i'd see the same tree i've grown up with, its leaves lying dead at its feet, and then back up to see the brightest of flowers in their place; as red as my insecurities when i wonder if i'm the only one that's left unchanged in this world where the same unnamed tree in front of me only mocks me further by somehow bearing the greenest of leaves in summers, flowers as big as my heart in winters, and cotton as white as the snow i'll never see with my own eyes right before the season is about to give in to the heavy clouds bearing thundering rain.

here i've had my cold hand held
here i've cried into my calloused palms
let the wind caress my damp cheeks
and longed for long-dead arms

writing until all i could do was watch my words switch to nonsensical scrawls, this is where i sat until the caress of the cold left my lips trembling and my teeth chattering; rays of the sun pierced into my back; the first drop of rain touched the top of my head and followed trail after trail down my hair; the beginning of spring tickled the tip of my nose.

here i watched the world from
here i avoided living in it
learned to embrace my own presence
so yet again here i sit

staring at nothing and everything at the same time, talking to myself about all the things i had wanted to say out loud to people that aren't me. watching the flowers spin on their way as they detach from the branches and fall to the ground to clear the way for the green again; a tender reminder that i too, am made of more than just the red of my anger, the green of my envy, and the white of my naïvety.

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*to unroll