--

A unexpected,

uninvited, unwelcome

tenant.

Its choice of decorum wears at my heart

and the further it furnishes,

the less I am able or willing to resist.

I would demand rent; but what contract is written for the nameless?

When can I expect its raucous songs to die in the night if it has no voice to tire

and the breath it expends is my own?

It ransacks, it sifts,

through all I am.

It rends my chest.

And what was mine is left to pool in its mouthless cheeks.

To whom do I plead? Where could I protest?

My-- Our door,

has only ever been shut fast.