This series was created for the 2021 exhibition, Color:Story, which features the collaborative work of 20 Houston artists using local, national, and international poets’ words (https://www.instagram.com/p/CNs66kLpXVT/). I chose the following poem, written by Brandon Dillon. Make sure to follow his beautiful work on Instagram! @brandondillonp0etry

“I sat in my car the other day and cried. I did not know why. I pulled up like any other day and just cried. Maybe it was the state of the world or the state of my world, or maybe just acknowledging the state of decay everything seems to be in. Maybe the realization that life has taken such a toll, and its only just getting started, and maybe that my memories seem like dreams, and the more I grasp at them the more they slip through my fingers. So I just sat there with my car turned off and cried. It was not a sad cry or a mad cry or an ugly cry it was just a cry that maybe I have needed to cry for a long while, but just could not. A cry for my childhood, or a cry for lost love, a cry for dead brothers, or maybe a cry for my mother. I am not sure, maybe just a cry for all the times I could not or would not cry. The more I thought about what the reason for my tears the more they fell, and I thought about my fears and possibly they were the reason for my tears. I thought about my misdeeds as a child and if they would come back to haunt me, I thought about my times overseas and know they haunt me, I thought about my boys, and, if I was doing enough, if I was preparing them for the onslaught of life that seems to be fast approaching them, and if I am preparing them, am I doing it too soon and robbing them of childhood, a childhood, a childhood, I am not too sure if I know what that even looks like anymore mine was so short, and so different from what they have. And I had no father, no father to learn how to be a father, so now I just stumble down this path I am on, lost in the haze of the days trying to pick the right choices, and so I cried. I cried tears that have been locked away for years, and they would not stop and even now as I write this, I feel them swelling up in me again, and I do not know why. Maybe it was the state of the world or the state of my world, or maybe just acknowledging the state of decay everything seems to be in. Maybe the realization that life has taken such a toll, and its only just getting started, and maybe that my memories seem like dreams, and the more I grasp at them the more they slip through my fingers. So, I sat in my car and cried.”