On the surface this poem is about how all of my books were lost in the mail once, on the way to my new apartment in a strange city. However, it's also about anxiety and depression, making stupid decisions for love, and the feeling of being forced to put a smile on anyway because you don't want to prove your naysayers right. It's also a reminder that no matter how good the rent is, don't ever get an apartment that doesn't have any windows.
Really Happy
The woman on the phone does not know that the box that collapsed on its way to our new city held in it not just all my books but everything. I am now so far away from the blue hills & the concerned church people who ask me what happened to my girlfriend & who that brooding boy is that I’m always with & why don’t I go to church anymore. The apartment is small & there are no windows & his books circle the room like a border I think to cross by passing through the spaces the books I wished to bring would fill. She asks for the names of all the books I never receive & I hesitate because I might not remember them all & then what? She says words like insurance & warranty & guarantee & I’m doing the best I can sir. I hesitate more because I can’t breathe in a room with no windows in a city that’s so far away from the blue hills so I stop answering the polite woman’s phone calls & sit in the small apartment with his books surrounding me while he is with his girlfriend back in the blue hills from which we escaped & I am all alone without my books but at least I don’t hear from the concerned church people who used to lean in & touch my hand & ask me if
I amreally happy.