my house
I'm moving next week. (Wait, next week?! I don't even have boxes yet.)
Anyway, I'm so relieved to be leaving this house, but not really. It's been really difficult living here. I feel that where you live has tremendous significance in your life: the house, neighborhood, people who share your space, all interconnected with your feelings and the course of your life, all affecting each other.
My life, this house, affecting each other. Something's been feeling wrong inside me. Well no, it's actually just a lot of little things, nothing is specifically *wrong*, but I've been getting bogged down instead of thriving. And my house, very cold, no water, like a lifeless planet that refuses to sustain me. There is something meaningful about me in my state in my house in its state. I don't really understand it, but somewhere in my gut it makes sense.
I've been crying lately. And not sleeping or eating enough. And I don't exactly know why. Well, it's partly because I can't brush my teeth or wash my hair or brew coffee or wash the dishes, and therefore I am simply surviving. I need to be at home. I need reciprocation. Symbiosis. I need water. I've been huddled in my living room under a down duvet and five or six layers of clothing reading a book. I've been bathing in public bathrooms. I've been feeling this coldness, dryness, emptiness, in my stomach that I can't articulate. But I can talk about the state of my house. And it's all really the same thing.
I'm relieved to leave this house because I feel like it's made my life difficult. But deep down, ridiculous as it sounds, I feel like this house and I understand each other, and the only reason it's been so hard to live here is because it's listening to me.
I wrote the following when the fridge died. I will miss this house.
Consequences
Nature could flatten this house
in an instant
but picks away at it slowly instead,
one vine
inching
through a crack,
one mouse
clawing the wall
from within,
one
drop
of
rain
in my bubble bath.
One by one
we've all caught the sniffles.
I brought ginger ale
lined cups on the counter
while you got the ice
but the tray spilled over.
For the first time
we noticed
the hum of the refrigerator
because it was gone.
Our inventions,
subject to the very rules
we built them to insulate us from,
delicate,
walls
in a world we cannot guard against.
Just as I push
backward at the ground
to step forward
there is an equal
and opposite reaction
when you look at me.
The food is spoiled
sooner than we planned.
There is no contract
against death.
We haven't the authority
to give ourselves.
Intention may guide our
kicking legs and
paddling arms
but what is decisive is ruled
by deeper currents,
always moving
contrary to our motions,
just as the change in how I see you
is a far greater consequence
of Newton's third law
than anything he could have
known or aimed at.
This is like learning to walk,
though harder,
because we don't find out
'til well after a push or pull
what we've drawn to us
from out of the future
or past
and unlike children
we think we can control
our direction
and are all
separate
from each other.
Anyway, I'm so relieved to be leaving this house, but not really. It's been really difficult living here. I feel that where you live has tremendous significance in your life: the house, neighborhood, people who share your space, all interconnected with your feelings and the course of your life, all affecting each other.
My life, this house, affecting each other. Something's been feeling wrong inside me. Well no, it's actually just a lot of little things, nothing is specifically *wrong*, but I've been getting bogged down instead of thriving. And my house, very cold, no water, like a lifeless planet that refuses to sustain me. There is something meaningful about me in my state in my house in its state. I don't really understand it, but somewhere in my gut it makes sense.
I've been crying lately. And not sleeping or eating enough. And I don't exactly know why. Well, it's partly because I can't brush my teeth or wash my hair or brew coffee or wash the dishes, and therefore I am simply surviving. I need to be at home. I need reciprocation. Symbiosis. I need water. I've been huddled in my living room under a down duvet and five or six layers of clothing reading a book. I've been bathing in public bathrooms. I've been feeling this coldness, dryness, emptiness, in my stomach that I can't articulate. But I can talk about the state of my house. And it's all really the same thing.
I'm relieved to leave this house because I feel like it's made my life difficult. But deep down, ridiculous as it sounds, I feel like this house and I understand each other, and the only reason it's been so hard to live here is because it's listening to me.
I wrote the following when the fridge died. I will miss this house.
Consequences
Nature could flatten this house
in an instant
but picks away at it slowly instead,
one vine
inching
through a crack,
one mouse
clawing the wall
from within,
one
drop
of
rain
in my bubble bath.
One by one
we've all caught the sniffles.
I brought ginger ale
lined cups on the counter
while you got the ice
but the tray spilled over.
For the first time
we noticed
the hum of the refrigerator
because it was gone.
Our inventions,
subject to the very rules
we built them to insulate us from,
delicate,
walls
in a world we cannot guard against.
Just as I push
backward at the ground
to step forward
there is an equal
and opposite reaction
when you look at me.
The food is spoiled
sooner than we planned.
There is no contract
against death.
We haven't the authority
to give ourselves.
Intention may guide our
kicking legs and
paddling arms
but what is decisive is ruled
by deeper currents,
always moving
contrary to our motions,
just as the change in how I see you
is a far greater consequence
of Newton's third law
than anything he could have
known or aimed at.
This is like learning to walk,
though harder,
because we don't find out
'til well after a push or pull
what we've drawn to us
from out of the future
or past
and unlike children
we think we can control
our direction
and are all
separate
from each other.