Rooms I've Lived In

Every life framed by floor and wall

and doorways being boundary

for distinct sets of events.

Here I breathe, mutter to myself

receive oblique traffic noise

and reminders of happy hour

where loveless stink in reverse cycle

will count for dismal ease and picky freedom

the world may rush so I act as anchor

you can call it apathy or denial

you could be right because i don’t care

only in infinitesimal moments

chaining back to my child patterns

in rooms where I closed my eyes often

the fear of hominids in me

and the erasing lessons the more rooms

my memory gives me to live in.

it is a phalanstere –

one room a dance hall

the other a shadow theatre and

kitchens that had absolutely nothing

occur in them.

Ariel Riveros Pavez