What You Learn

You learn the sound of rain

through a roof that never quite holds.

It’s not just wet—

it’s rhythm, it’s warning.

Move the pan. Shift the blanket.

Don’t sleep too deep.

You learn that cold doesn’t ask.

It comes in sideways

through the places

where the walls gave up first.

You layer.

Not because it helps

but because it feels like doing something.

You learn to fix what breaks

with things that weren’t made for fixing.

Wire.

String.

Faith, if you’ve got any left.

Duct tape, always.

Hope, sometimes, but sparingly.

You learn not to look too long

at anything new—

a neighbor’s truck,

a cousin’s shoes.

Too much looking starts talk

and talk’s a fire

that burns things down.

You learn what food stretches.

Beans, of course.

But also silence.

Also memory—

Mama laughing once

when her feet bled through her boots.

She said it tickled.

She made it funny.

That’s another thing you learn.

You learn that some people

mean well

but don’t stay long enough

to mean much.

They come with clipboards

and say words like systemic

and underserved.

Then they leave

and don’t come back

for Thanksgiving

or snow.

You learn to carry the dead

quietly.

Not in pictures,

but in the way you stir a pot,

the way you answer the door,

the way you don’t complain

when the lightbulb flickers.

You learn to get by.

Not thrive, not rise—

just get by.

And maybe that don’t sound like much,

but it’s something.

It’s still standing.

It’s still here.

And Lord knows,

not everything is.