Layers [√]

[ a gateway to purgatory ]

our house

with its four corners and
its wooden beams
a creaky stairway faded photographs
mounted on walls crinkled
with age and dust

a dining table surrounded
by assorted containers of coffee sugar milk and
the occasional ketchup wrappers and
canned leftovers from
hurried breakfasts

a sink filled with plates and pots and
the dishwashing soap that makes
my hands rough with acid boarded up
windows that breathe in the
outside air with a heaviness
that settles into your bones

a ceiling fan taking up the heat
from your pores sweat dripping from
your head down to your chin
shirts plastered water bottles everywhere

two rooms that speak
of family burdens and
forgotten secrets of people
that no longer exist

our house

who moans guttural war-like cries
on rainy days drops from the roof
cascading down like tears on our
kitchen floor a crime of desperation
pity bad juju all over again like what
my aunt used to say before she sprays
Latin words on our doors

a couch if you could call it that
a contraption to make you
stay stay stay stay stay stay

a shoe rack on the balcony
that loses its contents slippers
without pairs piling on top of shoes
with dirty soles and even
dirtier footsteps

it's just is no one really complains says
it's part of the whole community
of living together but my head
gets wrapped around my eyes whenever
i see my shoes misplaced when i
carefully stacked them next to
each other that afternoon

our house

a structure of discomfort a cage
too small for my daydreams and
my nightmares

a box full of childhood trauma and
awful memories of adults tearing
at each other like monsters
tongues wagging horns blazing
fire everywhere!

us children we burn we scald but
we have learned to muffle
our cries with indifference

our souls bottomless like a cavern
aching to be fed our eyes dark and
hungry for chaos

don't let us fool you we bite