Apartment 5

When we first met, you were as empty as me
and I loved you for it. (We could start over together.)

Still, there were fragments—
hair from an animal I’d never met, walls from people I wish I hadn’t—
but we vacuumed and scrubbed until your walls replaced mine.

It wasn’t long before I woke up and thought home. 

You were broken, same as me.
Your crooked doors, sinking foundation: my metaphors.
But we fixed our reflections.
So when the mice came through, 
I named each one 
before moving them to places of their own.

When it came time for me to leave, I didn’t. Not really. 
You named me the way I named the mice. 
So I could always find my way back.

As published by Garden of Neuro publishing in A Safe and Brave Space Vol. 3, summer 2024