By I had that dream again last night
no, not the one where I’m in college and I can’t find my class schedule again
the other one, where I’m living in my dream house
it was a little different this time, but not different
still spacious, modern but cozy, nice furniture
and there’s always a hallway that leads to a part of the house i’ve never seen before
and it’s really clean, pristine
and it’s like, how did I not know about this? this is amazing – bonus square footage
but I hesitate to go
because once I emerge from the other end of that hallway
and make footprints on the silky white rug
once I put my dinner plate on the coffee table
and once I lay on the couch and do everyday couch things on it
it’s not new anymore
and what if there’s not another undiscovered hallway to go down
and that’s it, and I’m out of new places to investigate
and what if… well, usually about then i wake
and in my half-conscious state
I try to think about any rooms in my real house that I might have missed
like a brick that I can twist in my living room and the whole thing will switch
or a window that I haven’t looked out of recently
or worst case, some furniture that I can rearrange
so that it doesn’t feel the same
am I odd to see life like an odyssey?
why am I still browsing open houses on Zillow a year after I bought one?
how is it that sitting under a perfectly fine roof on a perfectly comfortable chair that I still feel like a vagabond?
aimless
like i’m trying to write soliloquies on a keyboard with no return
just an empty space above the shift key on the right
i have no way to start a new line, or a new life
so I wander in the wilderness
through the wayfaring I crave bearing
the drifting hurts to the bone
never quite sure of a moment
that’s why I keep trying to recycle words into poems
like if I could reverberate the tone
enough to turn nouns and verbs into stone
i could subvert the loneliness
but maybe the reason we’re prone to this thirst to roam
is because this earth… isn’t… home
and this whole human existence is like summer camp
we’re just here to have experiences away from our parents
yeah there are mosquito bites and the bed isn’t very comfortable
and we have to cook our own food but
didn’t we find part of ourselves in that camp fire?
was it the sparks or were we the little glowing souls floating in the smoky purple haze
and that mountain we climbed
with every step we took we left an older version of ourselves behind
there were stray branches, we got some scratches
and JJ got poison ivy
and the sunburns, those were probably the worst but
we’ll never forget the sun shining off the lake like a prophecy of light
we’re a little sore from learning to water ski but tonight
anything can happen
we might laugh until the sky turns bright
or stumble into a first kiss under the moonlight
either way
we’re gonna remember these days until we’re old and gray
and when the summer’s over we’re gonna go home and say
you’re not gonna believe what happened
I’m not the first person to feel like life is an exodus
I suppose it’s like Moses for the rest of us
I know the promised land isn’t listed on Zillow
and tonight, when my head hits the pillow
i’m probably going to dream of more new houses with secret passageways and unexplored rooms
but i can rest, assured that the only thing better than real estate
is a real estate
and I know the trust is mine to own
so I’m gonna keep throwing wood on the fire and blazing new trails and turning over stones every day
until i’m on the bus ride home
