The one thing I miss about the condo
is all the windows.
When it rained, you really felt it in every room
and the sound was on your roof
and not the apartment above you.
I keep my curtains drawn
because my single window looks into another window
and I do not want my quiet life
projected into their home
like a B-Movie they can’t turn off.
Half of my head hurts, and
I consider a time before migraines, and
I wonder how much day-to-day pain is normal.
Ever since I stopped cutting, in what ways
has my body determined its own destruction.
Downing another coffee or another beer
or another person who doesn’t know me
I wonder what part I still deliberately play
and how to keep getting away with it.
I don’t miss a lot of things.
I do not miss the drudgery of a neighborhood
awkwardly placed on the line between a suburb and
a “bad area”, growing up while people laughed,
“that’s Clareview for you”,
otherwise knowing no concept of danger outside my parents’ condo.
Inside was another story, loud
and angry. Smokey and old.
I do not miss it.
I also don’t miss the dead-end job –
of course, I still work there sometimes.
Of course, I tell people of my other work first
when they ask,
and in those small moments I tell a story of redemption.
It’s not a true story.
My body still walks those five halls
and is walked upon for fifteen dollars an hour and
it keeps me in a home with one window.
They tell me I must be grateful.
Being grateful is not enough.
I am grateful for the icepack on my head
and the neighbor’s cat, who greeted me outside at night
until they moved away.
I am grateful for all the people who’ve stayed –
and when someone is kind to me with no possible motive,
like a gentle word from a stranger in the supermarket,
it moves me like nothing else.
Even for my home with one window,
I am grateful –
It is the first home that has kept me safe.
It does its job, and so do I.
I ask myself, what more do I need.
Vague, shapeless prospects of other places,
other people, all conjured from nothing
walk through my mind.
Upon these, I have built my identity
and in the name of them, made every single decision,
every declaration.
They still play no part in my day-to-day life.
These things are my religion.
They too may not exist.
I press my icepack closer
and I open the window so that I can hear the rain.
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