the oneiric house

in dreams I draw my house in the mouth of the highest hill

the driveway bends steeply to the door

but I enter through the rooftop: a black triangle


reveals itself as the dark plane of an open box.

downwards I drift to find my living room lightless

& filled with closed cardboard boxes.


in the darkness that confuses my memories

of an illuminated, aestival childhood

I know I've left something here.

---

red lipstick

in the second house, I grew angry at lipstick on the mirror

I lost a hamster to the heating system

I watched the television tower & fall


the architecture was misleading

suspended over a steep hill 

we would enter through the third floor;

strangers lived underneath

rumbling in the ventilation system;

each balcony, higher, loomed over a barren yard

a highway just beyond

a height that tugged, tempted


in the dry earth I dug a hole, but could only bury my elbow

I snuck over the neighbor's fence

& in the roots of their tree, hid provisions for running away


once, while my mom was at work, I devised a trick

to paint my face bloody & bruised with makeup

as if I had fallen in a terrible accident

beneath the stairs I waited, sprawled, for her

for the moment that she would see my injury

& cradling, heal me –

but she was late

so I washed my face

off into a sink 

running red