I keep renewing the lease for my
secret home at the pit of my own stomach.
I have 4 roommates there all of them named doubt,
none of them respect my boundaries.
It’s been going on for decades.
I can’t think clearly
’cause I can’t walk fast enough anymore
but I know that
at 19 I pressed pants
folded sheets
sang recklessly
walking fast I put out my right arm
at the side of the road to catch cars
I laid outdoors by myself unafraid of solitude
making up constellations for my dead hero
I danced drunk until the windows broke
and woke up with glass in my hair.
At 20 I vomited up the pills I took
and got high in Chinatown an hour later.
I sculpted clay to my image, but no one
saw me that way and a three-pronged wishbone broke
in too many pieces for anyone’s wish to be granted.
At 21, drank wine alone
avoided countless close calls
and got a dog who has saved my life every day since.
Approaching 24 I wished to go quiet and just hum.
Time blurred and blurs and I don’t know the years
so clearly anymore with who I was
and who was in dreams.
31 now and I still pay rent for that secret home
I share with doubt and doubt and doubt and doubt
but I don’t sleep there much anymore
and when I’m there
I hum loudly to drown out their noise.
