Home

I am built

From the taunts of catty rich girls.

They are hurdles on my path

To boyhoood.

 

I am filled

With the sounds of rushing

Creek water. Peace and quiet here

When nowhere else feels

Like home.

 

I am the sounds

Of demons being slayed

In the basement

Of a dissertation being slayed

In an upstairs study.

Life defined by two absences

As much as what is present

 

I have rot

From this house that tried

To kill me,

Life away from friends and school and

Sanity

 

I am the couch

Where I lost my virgnity

This old combination of cloth

Cushion and wood a bigger

Absence than my father.

 I am

A cripple. Sixty years old

At least on the inside.

Pills and bottles, mobility aids.

My body is a husk. Or something

I work around, not with.

Maybe I would get along better

If I tried with not around

But it is demanding, picky about

How much I sleep, what I eat

When I do what  do

So much I cannot give it

Or even

That it won’t give itself.

Life is to busy for me to rest away

All of the aches and pains. So maybe

I am pain. Life is pain in

My fingers, elbows, ribs, knees, lungs.

Loud or quiet but always

Always there.

Yet I go on.

Maybe that makes me pain’s super villain.

Paws

Your paws will carry me.

They will guide my life as you

Help to grant me my freedom

From fear and anxiety.

These paws carry your big and magnificent

Body. Life without you, without

Those paws would be bleak indeed.