The Only Thing I Can Hear

the only thing i can hear, the gritty sand-on-teeth grimace of living in the lower class. these cheap panels of wood that make up the fabric beneath my footing paint bloody scenes of getting stuck. mama lives in these walls because it is the only thing she knows that hasn't made her feel like an outsider. daddy left these walls, good riddance, because he found no beauty in the gaping despair sewn into the cheap linoleum flooring. these walls, these too-long, too empty, too big to fit what we had left of our family walls, they open wide when i step in and they smile sweetly while i lay dreaming.