i’m tired of owning
things

boxes taped up and torn
open again and taped
up again but never really unpacked

i’m tired of clothing and toys and furniture and
all the trappings of should and supposed to and someday

i’m tired of all the things we bought because
they’re the sorts of things adults should own
to do the sorts of things adults should do

(once, we were humans)

give me instead
bare feet on pavement
breath in my lungs
hope in my eyes

give me instead a wine bottle emptied with friends
give me

words
scratched onto paper
or spoken from honest lips
give me

a fire to beat back the chill of night
dancing flames against the blackness till
all that’s left is
ashes

come with me and let’s be
pirates tearing open
cardboard boxes like treasure chests scattering
worthless trinkets on the waves hoarding
nothing at all

come with me and let’s ransack the
storage units and moving trucks full
of forgotten hopes and broken promises

all the things we collected along the way
all the things that never could
add up to home
(no matter how hard we tried)

[ image: papalamour ]