The Place Where Noodle Boy Lived
My ex-girlfriend’s
parents’
downstairs tenants’
son and daughter-in-law
live with their newborn baby
in the house where I learned to masturbate.
I went back once before they moved in.
The walls had been painted a different color
and the stain where Jake spilled
a 44-ounce Speedway Dr. Pepper
had been replaced with unfamiliar carpet.
I walked around that barren house
remembering when a thousand spider eggs
broke open on my pillow
as I tried to fall asleep.
I’ve never seen my pacifist mom
so ferally protective of her cub
as when she sucked their tiny souls
into the oblivion of a raging death
vacuum.
I felt like Harry Potter
with my chin scar throbbing
over the chunk of floor where Tara
had bit me on reflex
when I kept pretending to pick her up.
She did not like being picked up.
No not one bit.
The poor doggo had
whimpered in corners for days because
dogs don’t know how to apologize.
The basement was three times
the size without four lifetimes
of collected possessions and garbage
boxed up and shoved into corners.
The basement ghost that used
to chase me up the stairs felt lonely
without the desk where my Dad
would run autocad and watch horror movies
until 2am
Ignoring the projects that piled up
on his workbench because
He Can Fix It Himself So He Will Fix It Himself.
I regret not stealing the
untouched vaccuum-sealed
ounce of weed I found
in the top left drawer;
A relic of my grandfather
who would send ahead greeny goodies
for himself so he’d have something to do
when he came to visit.
The driveway has an extra parking pad now
which would have been helpful
when we filled an entire dumpster
with half our roof
and all our worldly possessions
and an ounce of the finest Humboldt cannabis
in the weeks before I started college.
But I’d be lying if I said
that pairing your home life down
to a one-bedroom apartment
and a medium-sized U-Haul box
1,000 miles from the unfamiliar
cornfields you came to call home
isn’t a great
if involuntary way
to strip away
everything you ever
thought you knew
and make space
for new memories
and new identities
you never knew existed
when you lived in a two-story
craftsman bungalow
in Wauwatosa Wisconsin.
My ex-girlfriend’s
parents’
downstairs tenants’
son and daughter-in-law
live with their newborn baby
in the house where I learned to masturbate.
I went back once before they moved in.
The walls had been painted a different color
and the stain where Jake spilled
a 44-ounce Speedway Dr. Pepper
had been replaced with unfamiliar carpet.
I walked around that barren house
remembering when a thousand spider eggs
broke open on my pillow
as I tried to fall asleep.
I’ve never seen my pacifist mom
so ferally protective of her cub
as when she sucked their tiny souls
into the oblivion of a raging death
vacuum.
I felt like Harry Potter
with my chin scar throbbing
over the chunk of floor where Tara
had bit me on reflex
when I kept pretending to pick her up.
She did not like being picked up.
No not one bit.
The poor doggo had
whimpered in corners for days because
dogs don’t know how to apologize.
The basement was three times
the size without four lifetimes
of collected possessions and garbage
boxed up and shoved into corners.
The basement ghost that used
to chase me up the stairs felt lonely
without the desk where my Dad
would run autocad and watch horror movies
until 2am
Ignoring the projects that piled up
on his workbench because
He Can Fix It Himself So He Will Fix It Himself.
I regret not stealing the
untouched vaccuum-sealed
ounce of weed I found
in the top left drawer;
A relic of my grandfather
who would send ahead greeny goodies
for himself so he’d have something to do
when he came to visit.
The driveway has an extra parking pad now
which would have been helpful
when we filled an entire dumpster
with half our roof
and all our worldly possessions
and an ounce of the finest Humboldt cannabis
in the weeks before I started college.
But I’d be lying if I said
that pairing your home life down
to a one-bedroom apartment
and a medium-sized U-Haul box
1,000 miles from the unfamiliar
cornfields you came to call home
isn’t a great
if involuntary way
to strip away
everything you ever
thought you knew
and make space
for new memories
and new identities
you never knew existed
when you lived in a two-story
craftsman bungalow
in Wauwatosa Wisconsin.