art thou

A Poem by a bad habit

are you the mute dog caught under the porch of an age old house surrounded by trees, found years later mummified with skin tight to bone, dusty throat raw from your desperate howls that were never to be answered or even heard? are you the dried up newspaper, crumbling at the creases with fading print and rat droppings littered across your surface and something

dangerous birthing inside?

or are you a cell of the abandoned prison, laced with spiderwebs, strange vines, and the lingering smell of desperation? the rusted iron bars that cast only the shadows they remember upon the floor? a fogged glass window in the rainy winter with no lights shining behind it, no hum of chatter or music or electricity? or are you the person who lives there, saving each coin between the cushions

for the laundromat?

perhaps the dusty blanket in a dark alleyway that once housed a pair of identical twins, now simply a place for stray cats to nest? the ragged baby shoe next to it, half chewed by rats and stuck in monotone in the half-light? you the mute dog caught under the porch of an age old house surrounded by trees, found years later mummified with skin tight to bone, dusty throat raw from your desperate howls that were never to be answered or even heard?
are you the dried up newspaper, crumbling at the creases with fading print and rat droppings littered across your surface and something

dangerous birthing inside?

or are you a cell of the abandoned prison, laced with spiderwebs, strange vines, and the lingering smell of desperation? the rusted iron bars that cast only the shadows they remember upon the floor?
a fogged glass window in the rainy winter with no lights shining behind it, no hum of chatter or music or electricity? or are you the person who lives there, saving each coin between the cushions

for the laundromat?