Where Dust Settles

My home is where silverfish creep and dust

settles.

Furniture once new, now worn. Battered ‘round the sidewalk, trembling at the root.

It's shabby. It's home. It is.

It was.

I thrive on the isles of second hand stores,

Gentle fingers running 'long the spines of fabric like an experienced pianist.

Child hand in adult hand.

I feel bare under your eyes.

I need more clothes.

I am the sister of my father's alcohol bottle, brother to his cigarettes

I grow jealous of his favoritism towards them. Years later I seek solace with them too.

Look at me please.

Look.

I grow up on the bridge between the stolen apple's fresh and putrid decayed state

Arguably sweeter in the rotting phase.

The living room is rotten too. You look hurt. His knuckles bleed. You do.

His do.

Home is the glaucoma and dancing of colors upon waking up in a thunderstorm,

Closely followed by focus on light,

Conscious thought takes flight.

I tell you I'm afraid of the dark. What I don't tell you is that its embrace is warm.

Fear is warm.

I fear you, and your chest's cherry blossom

scent.

Mourning hangs the twilight rose,

Having stumped its

growth.

I wish I could tell you, mother, how you stumped mine,

But you chipped off my thorns, and made my petals

shine.

Your eyes are as warm and dark as fired coal, though your words bite.

Is my skin so ugly? My body so frail? I kind of like it. Now I do.

I do.

Precipitation taps the window.

My anticipation grows.

The clock ticks,

Work is done.

Will you come home?

The curlicues of ash blush my cheeks.

Spiderwebs thread my lashes.

I fasten my dress with a curtain belt and pull at the skirt.

Silence my nerves.

My thoughts plummet with the rain,

Rise

from the roots of the willow tree.

My home is anywhere the thistledown forms and

goes

It's good to have you home.