No Longer Knotted

I haven’t just been resting

Within the acoustic ceiling

I’ve had a lapse of judgment

Within the knotted timber

Filled with ornate furniture and clothes everywhere

With a drawer just for clutter that doesn’t have a place to be

And blue Christmas lights around the window frame

With a permanent laundry basket in the chair on the left

Old CDs and framed 80’s themed posters

With a bed with too many pillows within its metal bedframe

When love shows up at my front door

Regardless of where I am in life and its direction

I won’t vigorously slam the front door shut

And I’ll do my best to breathe and let it in

Stolen street signs and green led strips light up the room

The alternative record covers, flowing tapestries,

Countless polaroids, and colorful setlists make the walls invisible

A guitar amp without a guitar and endless art supplies

Too many empty bottles of alcohol for comfort on display

With a poorly kempt mattress on the floor with two pillows

My chambers were never my true home

As delusional promises can still be hopeful

Nonetheless the hiraeth

As I am no longer knotted within timber

White Christmas lights and a weighted stuffed kitten plushie

A few binders filled with elementary school homework

With a basket in place of what could soon be a nightstand

A mirrored closet filled with a few shirts and colored pencils

A classic metro map of Chicago and selective polaroids of friends

With a clean mattress on the floor with three pillows as it yearns for a bedframe

Intimacy coerces me to be raw and restless

So all I can do is let those tender thoughts flow

With the sparkling, christening shower water

For each love and its respective loss is unprecedented

© Niklen 4/13/23