Sotto Voce

When I saw my first studio apartment

I did not sob or cry out.

I did not realize I was safe.

Ownership; a foreign tongue, a shadowy mirage in the desert horizon, felt useless. An unfamiliar shirt in loose laundry.

I was, though, always the perfect guest.

I made myself disintegrate.

Soundless.

Voiceless.

I became so sleek and aerodynamic;

collapsible,

I could fit in the boxy

shadow of your favorite picture frame.

It hurt so much to squeeze that tight. To cut away those fatty, lopsided, perfectly imperfect parts of myself. But I did not dare give myself the permission to take up space.

I never complained. Dont prefer. Be fine with everything. Because you own nothing. Have nothing.

And then you do.

One day you get a studio.

It is completely quiet here. There are no hoarder junk-bomb-piles: only space and sun.

No stains on the floor, no grime on the walls. Plumbing works. That horrible chronic, wet cough from the living room chair; a dying canyon echo.

Each day I become grander and broader, full of color and appetite.

And in those small, wild, fluttery moments

that I recognize the flashes of future I dreamt of

I grin.