notes from a cardboard box

two story high 

imagination roams cream 

walls french vanilla

sky. entresol the cats

survey new lands 

from a cardboard 

box we have 

somehow

arrived

#katyamills

may sometime two

I told you what she said to me and then I felt hurt again, yesterday all over me. I faltered and began to cry. You were my witness. All night I was on knees and hands, scrubbing the place I called home for 5 years. When I finished it was dawn.  I hardly got any sleep. Life pulls me along. Today I am the broken tree lying in pieces in the parking lot. I will surrender the keys.

another loss -iv

i borrowed your bike because mine was already locked up in my future home, this cool and windless morning, and after passing through De Fremery Park,  i found my key under a stone and let myself into the ranch on Magnolia surrounded by high and gapless fence. after catching my breath, i switched out yours for mine, as my Motobecane was twice ten speed and yours BMX. i determined it too dangerous to travel slow through West Oakland at dawn. the lady of the house, an attorney corrupted by law, was dead asleep ina sheet ona couch in the living room. i held my new key close to my heart, and walked down the hall to see the project i had recently completed. two new coats of eggshell paint covered four walls, ready to receive the light and warm a heart or two. all the cat dander raised up in the disturbance, in my lungs now,  soon to wake me with fits of asthma overnight. once i would be lucky, with my dear Kali at my side in the cot, fourth of july, to help with pressure points and rifle through my many backpacks for my inhaler , to rescue me without breath.