The Occupants

This house
is full
of age.
These walls are wrinkling
behind my back.
I can hear them,
as I rest,
cry like passengers
on falling flight.
Somewhere a window is opened,
elsewhere a room collapses.
Beds everywhere, cushions
soft enough for no one to rest upon.
Bad idea here, regrettable memory there.
irascible youth,
primitive scars,
quintessential unimportance -
staining the carpet.
Baby vomit on my skin,
I tore a piece
of my mother's vagina
off when I was thrown
into this world.
I am paying back
for the pain since,
since,
and since.
And I am breathing,
and that is the catapult
from which joy is launched
somewhere down the street.
I can hear,
i can make out,
i can see
it all
from the tearing screen
of my room's window.
And it is hard to recall
that you are merely an occupant.
It is hell to know.
It is a house full of age,
a spine outstretched - widened - by woe.
It is a house full of age.
Surely the finest of
agony
thanks this disconcerted abode for
its being.