How long have you existed

Perhaps twenty years or so?

You have been filled to the brim

With the laughter and the bumbling

Energy of many who have come

And who have gone

You have been filled with noone at times

But you have always been adorned with

The comfiest of sofas and the most joyous photographs.

You have been a beacon of something for

Those you have housed for nineteen years or less

You have provided an aura of physical safety

Even when I myself did not feel safe within the world’s borders and yours as well

You have allowed me to litter your floors, doors, halls, and walls with my

Rubbish thoughts that only I probably find to be rubbish because you do not care do you?

This is your world and I am simply another fixture within you

And I want to preserve your continuously changing appearance

Because I myself am venturing off to meet another that will allow me to take refuge in them

And live most of my days with them and store a portion of my baggage within them

I do not know how long it will take, but I wish to find someone that I am comfortable with

As much as I have been with you.

Every day I attempt to climb through the piles of years of knick knacks and children’s clothes

And toys and I can just feel the weight of passing time upon my shoulders and my thinktank

Because I keep and I keep and I keep all these items that once filled me with the utmost distraction from the loneliness my mind had simulated for me.

I pass by my weathered collection of video game cartridges and consoles that my brother and I

Used to play when we had the time to have pure unadulterated fun with each other within your

County lines and we would sit together and strategically decide which paths to take and which bosses to fight and we would yell at the console with more enthusiasm than I can muster now.

I pass by my assortment of CDs that I have bought over the years in an attempt to preserve what I thought to be good, what I thought to be right, and what I thought to be real.

I pass through you and I examine every one of your nooks, crannies, and crevices and

My laundry list of emotions and events that have crashed upon the shore of your formerly

Carpeted grounds passes through my head over and over again

In the midst of it all, I find it in myself to thank you for letting me rest within your support beams and plaster.

I have never known another shelter other than yours and I thank you for letting me stay for so long.

Hopefully, I wasn’t much trouble.