House
◊ Nothing's mine at my new place.
I'm still shuffling my things from one cardboard box to another. I have one box for dirty laundry and two boxes for clean clothes. My computer's still in pieces in the garage. There are dozens of nails sticking out of the bare walls from where the last tenants hung pictures.
At my old place, I could see the thin light of sunrise reaching past trees and apartments through the screen of the kitchen window. Gold light would flood the bedroom as the sun set. It was a converted attic in a two-story house surrounded by small industrial buildings, so it floated up above everything. It shook in strong winds.
I would be woken up by birdsong. I could hear rain drumming on the metal roof outside my window.
Now I feel like I live in a box.
I have to listen for rain when it happens. The sun doesn't warm the floor; I have to step outside to feel the air moving. I have neighbors on both sides now and the muffled bass from their stereo speakers leaks through their walls and into my living room. The rooms echo. Anyone could live there.
I hear the neighbor children from the house on the left running and shrieking as they play in the driveway. Their feet slap loudly on the pavement.
I like the dishwasher and the ceiling that doesn't leak and the large patio and the big kitchen, but most of all I am incredibly thankful for the tall, tall palm tree in the yard of a neighbor across the alley.
When the wind whips through it, its serrated leaves make a noise like ocean waves.