Housesitting

I have calluses on my hands

From pulling on locked doors 

Dragging all my weight on these poor hinges 

Because I don’t trust myself to turn a latch 

I still think of you 

On days like these, lifetimes like these

I want you to know that 

I froze yesterday when a boy tried to speak to me 

A man I should say, he wears dress pants and contrarianism

I pretended I didn’t hear him 

I don’t know why

I wanted to talk to him for weeks but when I had the chance 

I could not get my attention away from my rough pink hands

And a vision of the cat dead on the floor 

The hairdresser cut my hair unevenly 

$60 dollars down the drain and a years worth of sobriety in limbo 

Every time I house sit I get so much worse

Maybe its just in the loneliness 

The paralyzing freedom 

The ability to starve or eat everything in sight 

The ability to f**k someone in a house that isn’t mine 

I have been reading Locke and Rousseau, they try to tell me about nature

This must be the farthest I could get 

Cocooned in synthetics and engulfed by radio waves

The motion sensor lights following me like a shadow 

My head wont stop throbbing 

The cat wont stop hissing 

I am a snowball, a slave to momentum 

I keep thinking of you

But your portraits grow more abstract by the minute 

Now you're just breath in my face, a can to kick down the road 

I keep waiting for a realization to hit 

For the cat to like me 

For the Spring to come 

For the hinges to give in and the door to smack some sense into me

To collect my payment and go home