Rent 1977

The house I live in is empty today.
I am alone in someone else’s house.

Once, perhaps, there were voices in this house
Tender voices,
But it is empty now.
It is not good to kick at the stall, wishing I could be somewhere
Anywhere else
Impedance has become my life
All my dreams and desires are impeded.

Other people’s rented out houses are strange places.
It’s almost as if they are confused, you know?
Waiting for one to come home who never does
When someone does arrive, it is not the One.
It is only some strange person around whom you are uncomfortable.
The wrong furniture
Cracking paint
Neglected plumbing.

The other apartments in the house are quiet because it is a work day.
I have cried myself empty to the walls of this house
But not around those other strangers
The only ears to hear my crying are wooden.

I sit on the back stoop wondering who else ever crouched here
Finding solace in the budding forsythia
Which no-one tends anymore
From the stoop I can hear the crick behind the house
I can see the back of the liquor store from here
Its cardboard boxes piled in shabby disarray
I listen as the freight trucks thunder past the house,
Shaking its foundations under me
I am alone in this ghost house
Which is never mine.

So I say to myself
"I will remember You are here"
While I am so unprotected and so vulnerable
So abandoned, and so pregnant
So confused in this other person’s house