Cold Outside Poems

At midnight,
the quiet room is the loudest.

Not with voices,
but with the small, patient things
that wait to be noticed.

A light is left on
in an otherwise empty building
not as a warning,
but as a kindness
no one remembers to name.

From the street,
it looks uncertain,
like something misplaced.

But inside,
it keeps the dark from settling too deeply
into the corners.

There are those
who pass by quickly,
imagining shadows in every window,
footsteps where there are none.

And there are those
who slow, just slightly,
as if they understand
that not every unfamiliar place
means harm.

Somewhere,
a door remains unlocked.

Not for everyone
but for the one
who needs it.

II

There is a boy who sits alone in the corner of the room.
Not because he is waiting for something,
but because the room has already decided what he is.

People pass him like weather
not unkind, exactly,
just certain in their direction.

Once, it was what a person carried inside that mattered.
Now it is what can be seen at a glance:
expression, posture, silence.

A story forms quickly around stillness.

And stories, once formed,
are difficult to unmake.

The world grows sharper in its judgments,
naming people before they have spoken,
placing them into categories that feel safe to others,
but heavy to carry.

And somewhere beneath all of it,
there remains a quieter truth:

most people are not what they are assumed to be
only what has been briefly, imperfectly seen.

III

Birds sing in the morning

as if nothing unusual has happened the night before.

Other people pursued art. I got bullied out of band by the locals. 

Now it all follows me everywhere,

once I moved away

the world slowly became drawable.

Music became singable 

When I'm here all I can't think about is the next hostile encounter

How I spent years wishing I could live where the neon meets the blackness

The eyes I paint are too large for the canvas at first.

Too expressive. Too adorable.

So I make them larger anyway. Maximum cuteness. 

And something strange happens 
not a change in style,
but a change in reality itself.

The lines stop feeling like imitation.
They begin to feel like recognition.

As if what I once called “anime”
was never invention at all,
but a way the world was waiting to be seen.

And slowly, without announcement,
it stops feeling like I am drawing it.

It feels like it is already here.

Anime is real.