Sakura

You wake early again; it's unclear if it's a curse or a blessing. Take three trains out to Brooklyn (as a reminder to never go to the boroughs on weekends), in a dark cloud (literal, too) on empty Flatbush avenue. It's too early for activity, the park lies quiet, but you turn a corner around some still-sleeping hydrangeas to find the grounds erupting in people. Push your headphones further in, turn up the music and let them melt away to the periphery. At every turn, spring buds dance around and explode in color, irrepressibly joyous and undeterred by, well, anything. The magnolias shake their large petals onto giddy children, the lilacs hold their breaths like little popcorn kernels of sweet scent until they burst, grape hyacinths carpet the entire grounds. And there, at the epi-center, rows of cherry blossoms parade around, basking in adoration and carefully curated social media profiles. I held a ball of blossoms in my hand, soft, cool, full, their beauty somehow soothing against my rough, unmanicured hand.

Later that night, with some beers under my belt, I stared again at my aging skin, stared at the ink drying on it and considered the marks life puts on us, the ones we put on ourselves. Second avenue was busy with spring Saturday revelers, the happy hum of their lives knocking on my closed windows. My skin yelled something about freedom at me.

I pulled down the sleeve, the words grew quiet. A voice in my ears repeated, Home at last. 

All I heard was homeless.