I’ve Lived in Seventeen Places, But Seldom Had a Home.

I gained consciousness on County Road 104,

Where, forming my first memory, sat BB, a chirping baby rooster,

Hidden in an Easter basket by a barbed wire fence.

Back when I’d not a clue of how to swim,

But they threw me in anyway.

“Your survival instincts will kick in,”

They assured a four-year-old whose vocabulary

and conceptuality omitted either word.

But they were right.

Though I did not understand how or why,

My first lesson was to

Sink or swim,

And it proved to be my most important.

Because when fall came and BB died,

And our neighbors tried to buy my sister on her second birthday,

My parents figured we better keep her,

Offered them a beer,

Finished her cake,

And moved away.

To the suburbs of Sabine Street,

A place that promised the American Dream,

Where my papa paid people probably too little

To rip up the grass and lay down new.

Because nothing smells better than fresh cut starts.

Bundled together with a nice brick building

And the assurance that if there were creeps,

They at least have to tell you by court order,

This was a place where anything seemed possible,

After I proudly paid for a pedigree pooch

with a bag of collected tin cans and some pocket change.

My time here was spent making friendship bracelets on my bedroom floor

And sure my mother wasn’t drinking whiskey.

It made her a fiery kind of mean

Where she’d rip doors off cars

And still muster enough strength

To throw a crystal ball at her husband’s head,

Perhaps to find some answers in there,

But more likely to stop his online poker playing.

I was living as comfortable as I ever had though,

with a wooden playset and a telescope

And no understanding that this was not how life should be.

Life’s not fair

Sink or swim

Eventually papers were signed, boxes were packed,

And all the myths

Like the Tooth Fairy,

And Santa,

And 'happily-ever-afters' were debunked.

One alimony payment and laundromat date later,

We moved into a one bedroom trailer

With the handyman who had helped us move out.

There I learned that moonshine cures strep,

And where babies come from with my own eyes :

Birds and bees and blunts and beer,

And the naked body of a strange man

Whom my mother had just met

On top of her on our living room floor.

There, I entered puberty and poverty at the same time,

Bewildered by the fact that there was no food in the fridge

Or boyfriends in my future.

Why can’t Momma take care of us anymore

Or just let me shave my legs?

I should know there are rules,

And shaving so young makes you a whore,

But shooting up and tounging strangers seems to prove fine —

I’d understand when I was grown.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

For sale: roughly converted battered women’s shelter on the wrong side of the tracks

For hire: rough around the edges “contractor” with felony charges preventing him from a job

It was a match made in heaven

Or hell.

But this fixer upper was supposed to up and fix us.

My second closest run-in with suburbia,

With it came white pillars, a wrap-around porch,

And a promise to be better.

But the birds and bees and blunts and beer had a different idea:

Paint fumes are bad for pregnant women,

So the holes were covered with construction paper,

And fault faucets left as such,

All hopes of suburbia washed down the green basins.

Every part of my past life was gone,

Except for hope.

Luckily, our backyard held thousands of clovers,

So I spent the summer searching for a four-leafed one to fill the void.

While at it, my pedigree pooch jumped out a broken window

And found her final resting place on the wrong side of the tracks.

If I had any understanding that this is not how life should be,

I would have followed suit.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

When my mother finally returned to reality

From her parental hiatus,

She announced it was time to leave this place behind us.

In front of us, his mother’s house (our new residence,)

Grinned a cinderblock smile, inviting us in with caution.

To the right, left, up and center, stood bunk beds,

Appearing more like a shelter than the one we just left.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The suspect always returns to the scene of the crime.

Fifteen people under one roof,

Five of them to blame:

The rest just kids.

Good thing kids make do and

Thank God for imagination and tetanus shots,

As my wooden playset and telescope were replaced

With scrap metal and empty Easter eggs.

Gotta make do.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

There ought to be issues when forming a small village,

So deeming it better to burn bridges than mend them,

My parents packed up the pickup,

Driving to our brand new home sweet home

Half a block down.

Times were had there.

Most of them spent chatting on top of a forgotten mac truck with neighborhood kids,

Once turning ten whole pounds of potatoes into french fries:

The best dinner of my life

Once housing a family of cats in my bedroom,

Until I was forced into my own White Fang moment.

Once peering into the landlord’s house late at night

to see if my parents had gone there to party;

They had.

Potatoes are cheap.

Gotta make do.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

For reasons never disclosed,

Perhaps drinking buddies don’t make good tenants,

Or the mac truck was not truly forgotten but stolen,

We left that plywood palace

To return to a more simple way of living.

Tucked in between a prison-tatted stripper,

And a granny who frequented her front porch

Wearing only what the lord blessed her with,

My parents flourished in this outcast haven,

While I cried in fetal position,

And my hair fell out from stress.

As — for the first time — they proved reliable,

If only in their nightly bar runs.

Here the creeps didn’t have to tell you they were there

Because it was a given.

Shortly after moving in,

My mother busted the lock off the door,

Allowing for all the things that go bump in the night

To let themselves in for tea.

Not that she wouldn’t have willingly invited them otherwise.

Block the door.

Potatoes are cheap.

Gotta make do.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

When the fun wore off and it was time to move on,

We found a home in Lendigardens apartment complex

Where I had my first kiss surrounded by K2 packets

And an old dog house the previous resident left behind.

Perhaps their fun had worn off there,

Or maybe just the drugs.

We’d walk down a bit to our neighbors,

And either watch VHS on a box TV

Or their mother getting detained.

Until another neighbor, in a lover’s spat,

Threw their DVD player across the fence into the trees

Where my sister was sent to retrieve them.

Be an opportunist.

Block the door.

Potatoes are cheap.

Gotta make do.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

Once all the DVD’s were watched,

And there was nothing else to do,

They figured it best to up and invest

In a little shotgun house.

Though I’d seen better shacks,

I was proud of our 500 sq. ft. fixer upper,

With its walk-in pantry attached to the laundry room/kitchen

Which made just as good of a bedroom as any

If you lay at a slight diagonal.

It was a chance for a new start —

Light was finally shining through the dark,

Until they forgot to pay the electricity bill,

But remembered to buy beer.

Optimists are disappointed.

Be an opportunist.

Block the door.

Potatoes are cheap.

Gotta make do.

Just my luck.

Grow up young.

Life’s not fair.

Sink or swim.

When I finally understood that this is not how life should be,

While my sister pursued careers in stick-and-poke and shoplifting,

I took to research

Emancipation

CPS

Legal penalties for runaways

But my sister beat me to the punch, downing a bottle of pills;

They pumped her stomach and sent her back.

My mother too, getting arrested for domestic violence;

They paid her bail and sent her back.

In a series of running away and being forced

to the four-letter word we called home,

We were inseparable in the worst way possible.

So while they sat around passing beer and blunts

And holier-than-thou judgements at me,

I sat and cried;

So much so that I’d feel I’d drown.

Until one day, I walked out,

Remembering the one useful lesson they ever taught me:

Sink or swim.