The Eventually Home

My friend, you were my home

You were the stable steel-supported walls that surrounded me

You were the floorboards and the concrete beneath them

With your Herculean strength you held up the ceiling

Refusing to let it fall and crash upon our heads

My friend, you were my home …

And then you died

Moments after you exhaled your final breath,

the walls became paper and limply fell down all around me

as the earth shifted suddenly and violently,

displacing and then liquifying the foundation

Then fire broke out and all that I cared about –

All that I loved, all that brought me joy or laughter –

Was quickly devoured by the aggressive flames …

Since that day, I’ve sat upon a pile of embers

____

My friend, you no longer haunt me as you did when you first died –

I no longer hear your voice or feel your presence when I wake …

Lately you only speak to me in memories –

You speak to me in fading photographs,

The colors becoming less vibrant –

and I no longer remember if your eyes were brown or green –

And I don’t know why the fuck I can’t remember that

____

I’ve lived much of my life with ghosts

Sleeping next to them – walking with them –

Inviting them to stay a little while longer

While disregarding the living

I prefer to live with ghosts

____

I am not a carpenter or a welder or an engineer or any type of builder

I do not know how to pour cement, lay carpet

or know how to choose furnishings for a starter home

And I don’t care about colors or designs or about any of the other details

I’m okay with 4 semi-cracked plasterboard walls,

with paint or wallpaper slowly peeling off –

And I’m okay with a kitchen floor covered with well-worn and slightly stained linoleum –

and a bed with a lumpy mattress and without a headboard

I’m learning Hope doesn’t need to be designer and elegant stemware served to friends who visit

It can be plastic tumblers from the Dollar Store …

All they need to do is hold water – and for the water not to spill out of them

____

For the first time in years, I can imagine wooden floorboards beneath me

And I can imagine hearing the footfalls of future memories step heavily upon them

The scorched and scarred land is healing –

Newly planted seeds will soon begin to mingle with the fertile soil

The fresh awakening grass will be blue, perhaps

____

I sit upon a pile of embers and see the skeletons of scorched and blackened trees all around me

I’ve sat upon embers for much of my life

And I no longer want this life, as I have lived it

All I have to do is stand up

All I need to do now is to stand the fuck up

I just need to stand the fuck up

And wipe away the ashes from my backside

As I look for the rising sun I’ve heard so much about