Alone in My Apartment

Is the place where I sit

I have been alone before but not like this

The sounds through the walls the tenants soak in

Crash after bang, squeak after smell

My walls are uneven, the paint covers the cracks

Paint falls from the ceiling; chips lie on the floor like a fish out of water

The gravel outside on the alleys are feet away, but I can feel the crunch

When others walk through it, with their dogs

I can see the joggers jog by after I get out of the shower

The odor of spring penetrates through everything

Do I have diabetes? I ask myself after I force myself to eat ice cream

Pint after pint, almost every day lately, just to get the high of

Feeling people drive past

My laptop is on my lap

My refrigerator refrigerates

My carpet covers some ground, and I remember

Living in the nursing home, sitting on the ground before the television, while

Eating an oversized lollipop

I used to get up at 5am to take medicine, and then go back to bed

And tell them to tell the driver that I did not want to go to day program

But when I did go, I would lie down on a slightly dirty couch

and sleep while the Food Network played

Reruns

 I really want to dive into the F Scott Fitzgerald collection in my bookshelf,

But my paranoia makes me feel like I got something harmful on it when

My broom hit it while I was sweeping

I know later I won’t care, that things will be better

And the most dangerous of the dangerous won’t scare me

But the seemingly safe will