my father laid down tile before i was born,
and it remained long after he had gone
muddy red and orange patterns with
uneven grout lines and gritty textures
a reminder of my mother’s quiet rage
in every new piece of furniture
never stable, always teetering,
and never where initially intended

my mother painted the walls yellow,
“i love earth tones,” she said,
and bought a set of brown leather couches,
sticky under my thighs in the summer
the temperature set no lower
than seventy-five degrees
“to save money,” she said,
because we never had enough
with polished nails, and new shoes,
and cosmetic procedures to feel better,
but never pleased enough to touch a mirror

my sister took the bottom bunk
in our room, used black markers
to write messages above that would
remind anyone below that she was here
maybe our mother was right,
maybe she wasn’t the brightest,
maybe she wasn’t the funniest,
but she was here, and she cared,
“mommy, you shouldn’t drink so much,”
at the airport check-in counter, then
“you shouldn’t be such a slut,” in response

i’ve lived here for twenty-nine years
and i fear i’ll remain for twenty more,
walking the same pathways, feeling the
same grimy ground of my youth,
breathing the stagnant air, frigid with
unrealistic expectations, and
the burden of an inevitable failure,
the debts of unfinished projects,
the talents of fiction, bordering delusion,
the life i won’t touch by the skin of my teeth,
let alone my aching palms

sprained fingers hold parts together
with pressure and plaster, grasping
for everything,
for something,
for anything,
and now, for nothing

a timeline of life,
here
is where it starts,
and this
is where it ends,
but only in the present
my life can start anywhere,
flowing to infinity
through all these windows