We didn’t need a moment to say goodbye.
We were too busy packing,
trying to move on.

I sleep on a mattress that sits alone on the floor.
I have the boxes,
all piled up,
full of the materials needed
to build myself a bed.
But they sit there instead,
gathering dust and crowding my corners.

I could be doing something,
picking myself up and walking
myself to a café to write
and to dream and to
make myself feel better
from the inside looking far out.
But I won’t. I will lie here,
eating the grapes from my fridge
which I tentatively tested to see
if they were still sweet
or fermenting on my bottom shelf.

I thought to myself to make the cookies
I had hidden in the freezer from decay.
I lay on the bed and swallowed a grape
and didn’t think about them again.

I could finally place my clothes now skewed
on the floor of my closet and hung
haphazardly on dollar store hangers
in the dresser I put together
with a Philip’s head and a hammer.
But, I don’t, because I can’t muster the strength
to pull myself from the floor.

I think what would I be otherwise doing
on such a windy Saturday
if I had stayed in the house my mother raised me.
It wouldn’t be sitting in a café
or thinking deep thoughts,
it would be lying, eating grapes, procrastinating
my settling into home.

We left in a hurry, too busy with forgetting
that we didn’t remember how important it was
to say our final goodbyes.
The house we remember is full of contempt
because we left it with our hearts so full and angry.
So now we mourn, as we think, we moved on
but not very far, and that house is something
we can never get back, or get out of our hearts.

And so I mourn, on the floor, on the mattress with no frame.
I mourn my flight, so that I might move forward again.
I say goodbye in hopes that maybe
by giving it time to heal, I will move onward
and again find in myself the courage
to break the boxes, and build the furniture,
and sit in a café with the feeling growing
from the inside looking in.

08/23/2008

Author's Note: When we moved out of the house we owned for fifteen years, we didn't have time to say goodbye, because we wanted so badly to not have to. We wanted to move on, to get over it. We found ourselves mourning it, missing it, months later regretting our departure. So, I am mourning what I've left behind as I start my new life so far away from my old, so that I too won't regret leaving, or feel contempt for something that doesn't deserve my anger. Why does a house cause so much hurt?

Posted on 08/23/2008
Copyright © 2010 Rachel C Johnson