For Rent

A poem about the struggle of subletting my grungy apartment.

A beautiful apartment in quaint, picturesque Waterloo

With off-white walls and doors a lovely light shade of blue.

Two bathrooms, two fridges and five bedrooms,

A spacious kitchen for chopping carrots and mushrooms.

So convenient, a short five-minute walk to campus

And minutes from restaurants and stores, no fuss!

Immaculately clean and extremely spacious,

With roommates and a landlord who are perfectly gracious.

Free laundry in the basement and fully furnished,

Pet friendly, affordable, every surface carefully burnished.

But wait -- I forgot some things, a few important features

To know as you relocate in frosty January, clinging to hot apple cider,

You should probably know the house is crawling with creatures,

Ants in the bathrooms, flies in the kitchen and visits from spiders.

The showers they scald and coerce you to shiver;

Toilets constantly break down, never any toilet paper,

And as I enter the bathroom at night I jump and quiver

As the fan shrieks like the victim of a skin scraper.

Fruit flies crowd over the pile of dirty dishes in the sink,

The kitchen counters are coated with a thin layer of filth,

Table ruined by cups, cans, beer bottles, rotted pizza stink;

No kettle or toaster or consoling breakfast as I lose my mind’s health.

Those neglected blue and purple stains, lying on floors and counters,

Mocking me, crying out to me in the middle of the night like lost kittens...

And my one place of sanctuary where I lock myself away from the mess,

The one space that is mine; it is the size of a bathroom in a normal house.

My squat closet packed with clothes turns dressing into a game of chess.

Squirrels scurry on the roof, between the walls and my skin crawls like a mouse.

Outside, where I often retreat from the loud music and clutter,

The land is thick with construction, garbage and shabby homes.

I dare not venture out at night and meet the people of the gutter,

Red-faced and laughing, shrieking, forming their boisterous domes.

Inside, the blank beige walls and bland blue doors remind me of an institution,

No living room, the cheapest lighting and the water stutters and hesitates,

The windows, screens, drawers and cupboards are broken with no substitution.

Everything is broken, a broken home, devastated, vegetating and desiccated.

I just want to go home.

Inside invading are the smells of rot, pot, Axe and apathy,

The mark of noisy, messy, brutish young men, my “roommates.”

One morning I awoke to find my hash-browns had been thieved,

A petty crime, but as hurtful as murder; I am stunned and irate.

However, from my first day I had a caterwauling consolation,

A brown and dark-grey tabby, purring, playful and friendly.

She sits upon my windowsill as I study, my feline elation,

And gallops toward me each morning, a bundle of energy.

So now that I’ve described the features, anyone want to buy?  

Call right away before it catches someone else’s eye!

Only $400 a month!  Five minutes from campus and shopping!

Hurry up people!  Free laundry!  That price isn’t dropping!

Author's Note

It has been quite a challenge trying to rent out my room for the remaining months of my lease.

This is also a description of the time I spent living there.