The month before my parents
sold the house I grew up in,
I went back one last time
to touch the wall of the crawl
space in the basement, which
wasn’t really a wall but a thin
silver skin holding in the
cotton candy guts that
feathered out where the
skin got too tight.

Through my teenage years,
this is where I hid 6 packs
of Bud Lite for the boys
who were rarely my boyfriends,
who came over to watch
movies in my basement and
since they weren’t planning
to watch anyway, they never
cared that I always picked
Chasing Amy or Boys Don’t
Cry and as soon as the opening
credits faded, I did too, and
the pleasure was honest but
there was nothing behind it,
and I didn’t think I had anything
worth hiding: just a room of
expired air, but mine.