Flat Hunting

Milla Brown

You are looking for a place to live. One comes furnished–big rooms, lots of light, no holes  in the walls. At the mere price of your left leg and a sliver of your soul. The second grows  unrecorded forms of fungus from the carpet. For the price of every meal you ever wanted to  afford.  

It’s pay day. You glance at your balance. It’s in overdraft and they will be coming to find  you. Best to bury your head in the sand.  

You grow jealous of the trees as you wander past. Them, with their permanence. Them, with  their long lives and lasting homes. If they are uprooted it means death; for you it’s a desperate  scramble.  

The walk to your car is long. Parking requires a minimum submission of your childhood  dreams. It’s old, but it works–sometimes. It smells–badly. It leaks unknown fluids, but it  can’t be that bad. It got you this far, right?

You walk to the waterfront. Its hostile beauty radiates free entertainment. Its waters stretch  into nothingness. Its cries stifled into the misunderstanding of music.  

You understand its woes. Its uses for others’ benefit. Its acceptance of going with what comes.  You too, drift on the tide of life. Washed up on a shore close to Dreams, but too far away from Home.  

You check the time, but your phone has long since escaped the land of the living. You would  check by the sun. But lost that talent eons before you even thought of it. It never existed.