On My First "Home"

I just found this poem I wrote three years ago and thought I would share it with you. I considered it somewhat of a breakthrough at the time in trying to get out years of repressed feelings about a few of the subjects I could never force myself to find the words for. I have, as you can see, come a very long way. For better or worse, this poem was an important early step that helped me to be more honest with my most hidden feelings. My mother really did fall down the stairs the day before I was born. I wonder to this day if it was an accident.

"My Mother's House"

My first womb was owned by a 15 year old slumlord
and I was evicted 2 months before my 9-month lease was up,
just because they fell down the stairs the night before
and apparently had the epiphany that I wasn't a worthy tenant.
The next morning, me and all my bloody belongings were thrown out
onto the curb, left wet and exposed,
my eyes unable to focus on the flourescent sunrise
surrounded by a blur of blue and white-coated strangers.

It might have only been a cramped little studio with thrift store furnishings
and nicotine-stained walls that had never known a cleaning,
but it was still "Home" to me before my Grandparents took me in.
Its thin walls never held onto the secret lives of the building too tightly,
and I always felt like some body had its hymen taken away
like candy from a baby in my bedroom
before I started unpacking the contents of my consciousness.

But it's 30 years later now,
and I've still never had the courage to ask the neighbors about it,
though I still often drive by the old place,
every New Year a rock thrown through a window,
an overgrown lawn obscurring where flowers once bloomed.
They say someone resembling my "mother" used to live around these parts,
but I've still never seen her.