Have you collected enough of your things?

This house tugs at you
a little girl looking for coins
searching for language to smooth things over

It snaps at your heels  cutting you off
Why do you bleed in muck?
Is it because the walls are crawling

all over you
uniformed in blue
and smiling something pretty?

Is it because you keeled over
ate driveway slate that pocketed skin
drew blood and marked your forehead mine?

Wide-eyed, you refused rock and turned to the heavens
but even then you were housed by
bars on windows that claw at the air

sallow glow-in-the-dark stars
and now a no-atrium ceiling giving off

false light
even after you break contact

inking the date of your return in something thick

*Photo by Elina Okolit on Unsplash.