Filling spaces

The day I meet the certainty
of a future laced with peace
is the day I will put my feet to ground
in the satisfaction of knowing that roots
will grow if they are given half the chance
and two drops of hope.

I left too many houses to know
what it might have been like to have a home
and there were too many empty spaces
of things my parents couldn't fill
to feel like I was raised to the end
of childhood rather than
adopting adulthood long
before knowing what it was.

Perhaps that calm that was having you
around to talk to was when
my faith in lasting things broke
like glass blown too thin
and gently squeezed
to shards of sand.

I didn't mean to fill the space
with grasping for what could not be -
but as always it seems to me
that empty-cornered hearts
were made for me
when people say "from the bottom of"
a bottomless breathlessness
that just needs a little patching,
a little love.