The irony of empty living rooms
and feeling alone in the world.

I like the living room
of the house I grew up in.
It has a different color on
every wall and I like
to wake up to it empty.
I wipe the counters like a waitress
or a tour guide to a museum
that no one remembers to visit--
drink coffee like a World War One
veteran trying to remember 
what he had fought for and who
he used to drink coffee with
when he came back to a small town
that only had one church.
I think we all crave sadness
not in masochism but just to be human.
We look for spaces that have always
tasted like stale cheerios
and most of us long for some 
sort of a past made up
of cut-corner memories. The 
pieces of a scrap book
we make to tuck under our
pillows and read ourselves "goodnight."
I re-tell the story
of watching a lightning storm
on the back porch of the 
house we rented on Main Street.
There were bees on the porch
and I sat between my father
and my brother who talked mostly
with his eyes.
It was the house next to the park.
The house with a sliver of a
backyard that we all knew 
was enough kingdom for
any seven-year-old with bare feet
and hair wet from a garden hose.
I have told that story a thousand ways
but I leave out the crying.
I say my father was a lightning rod--
my brother has always been a rabbit--
I say my mother was the windowsill
and that she watched us from inside.
I leave out the crying.
I know it had been for something
but over the years I round out
the edges of a tale of two
children who were eternal.
I find myself saying, "I don't
remember why I was crying,"
even when I do-- I don't want
to repeat getting hit with broom handles
and the scratch on my cheek
from door hinges undone--
pull thorns from my heels
and make a crown for my head.
Oh and we were all just human.
I think we're too scared of 
feeling sad. I don't want you to 
tell me it will get better because
some mornings what we need is a 
sadness that melts like caramels
on sundown sidewalks.
I want tell myself I'm alone
in the expansive infinite wingspan 
of other people--
I want to cry when the there 
is a breeze in an empty living 
room that reminds me of
a memory I'm making up as
I got along-- my scrap book is
my own and I will remember what 
I want to-- I can still cut 
my hair with scissors if I 
want to.
Don't tell me it will get better--
tell me that it's sad.
Tell me that you know I like
stale cheerios.
Tell me you remember
the curtains differently
and I'll say
"So did I, so did I."