The boy awoke, the day's first rays of sunlight
Kissing his cheek with its breath.

He looked around his cement home,
Caressed the wall with his hand,
The deep red and purple scars
Had burned his stories into his palms.
He recalled that morning so long ago,
The bleeding sky whispering of a sea
That would soon awaken from a long slumber.
A lone craft, basking in the crimson glare.
A father, his arm around another.
A mother, nestled against her husband.
A daughter, long brown hair waving as she ran.
A son, chasing his sister, vicarious laughter.
And then, the longest of nights.
Blackest of blues, Bluest of blacks.
Screeching winds knock his sister to the deck,
Lifting her off bruised knees,
He brushed glistening tears off of rosy cheeks
And held her in the raging storm.
Lightning brought a momentary daylight
Before volleys of splintering mast
Rained down overhead.
Black.
Eyes opened slowly,
Icy cold waves lapped at his feet,
Trying to pull him back into its embrace.
It was that day he stood against the sea,
And found his home.

The boy blinked away glassy eyes
And distant memories,
Returning his fingertips to the wall.
And he still felt them, pulsing from the
Graffiti stained concrete as if their heart beat with his.
Along the small, weather chipped grooves.
Along the soothing, gentle roughness he felt them.
Their love, filling him with the need to live.
This was his home now, for as long as he was here,
They still lived, within these walls, within him.
Cool, shadow streaked sand touched
The bottom of his frozen feet
As he slid off of his tattered bed.
It had been another cold night.
His legs were a pale blue,
Carved from a block of ice,
But here, in his home,
He was warm.

Breathing in, the salty air filled his lungs
As he stepped through the sun beam
That had crept in as he slept,
And peered through the window
Whose glass was long shattered.
Waves crashed down onto lonely shoreline,
White foamy caps gouging out sand
And dragging it back to the ocean.
The hands of the sea were strong,
And they beckoned to him,
Calling to the boy to join his family.
But they had already found him.

He smiled.