we are under siege here never time for our own agendas at the mercy of everyone else’s we squirmish in here and out there snipping at each other informing one another of our separate realties chafing in the small rooms together in our discontent hustling to pay the rent trying to keep the lights on in our souls and in our house that is not and can never be a home trying to grow or just hold on this house is always out of order it is not our house it belongs to the government all we can afford and more than we should pay to live this way poverty seals your mouth leaving you no say, we feed our selves on dreams of the day we can buy a home and move away, from the forms, and the screenings, the certifications, the prying, the re- certification, the snooping, the investigations, the theft of dignity, the police surveillance, the applications, the inhumanity, the renewals the random audits, the lack of quality in the quality control, our lack of control of always needing and not having of houses that are never in order ran by other peoples agendas this house is full of wanting want to work, want to learn, want to know how to put my house in order how to put food on the table without dancing with the devil we know if he plays the music we have to dance to the tune he picks and we are so tired of dancing, step, step, shuffle, move this way this house is not in order never enough, nothing left to pass on but debt too poor to die desperate to be just above water held in place by an ocean of history struggling to avoid the same old two step this house is not in order we feel locked in things don’t work here no one seems to know how to fix the things that keep falling down if you fill out the forms and wait someone will eventually blame you for something you will feel guilty of so you stop filling out the forms and things continue to fall apart and the notices come in the mail and you meet, get interviewed, submit documentation, social security numbers, birth certificates, wage stubs, and the rent creeps up, but the house is not in order it is not home it is a place to await notices, to eat sorrow instead of sleeping to walk the floor and rearrange the bills to scheme how exactly to rob Peter so Paul stops calling to remind you of your worthlessness this is a place to warehouse our dreams until we can afford them just a place to be found when they are looking for you to be held accountable for the things no one can fix a place to wait for your real life to begin a holding pen an insult a profanity that smells like tainted blankets and ovens full of flesh. |