A/N: Written for the 100_poems challenge on livejournal, poem 15/100 and day 14. (still out of order).
Character Poems: the Chosen through Time
3. Takenouchi Sora
Her home was always so quiet
in the background of a larger world.
Sometimes, it was like a bubble
she stepped through – to school,
to soccer, to see her friends,
and the noise would hit her in the face
like the air-conditioning when walking in
from a hot summer's day.
Her "welcome home" was always
a soft one the flowers shivered
but failed to sway
and her mother's response was in kind
now that caution was not a necessity
of her tone.
And her father was hardly home to say
much either way.
Sometimes she raised her voice; her mother's
would be a soft trickle on the breeze even then
and the petals would fall and crumble
behind a slammed door that provided
no satisfaction.
Somehow, she had never taken in the subtlety
of her home; it was very easy to say, when told, that
there was little love within it, to say
no-one understood
But when she did the same, hanging tight,
refusing to let go – and she realised just how often she did
get mad, because they were jumping into danger again,
or upset – for she wasn't mad? Was she? Nor the whisper
of her mother, hard like a stalk but struggling not to powder
beneath fingers coarse with rock and soil…
And the quiet place was one where she could rest,
rejuvenate, and regrow.
No-one said it had to be a bright red thing,
this thing called love.