I’ve lived many places
in the same location—how
many deaths are contained
in those serial lives?  And what
of the try-outs, the short
visits that only caused
chaos from beginning to end?

Not all remain empty–
I can still hear them rattling
the corners of memories
born in dreams.  If
I didn’t fit into every
context I passed through,
I still left parts behind—

Words I wrote that make no
sense now that I’m no longer
there—echoes that still
linger around the edges
of every song I sing.  Perhaps
they live in the parts
I can’t quite recall—

Or in all those apartments
that populate my dream
world, the ones I return
to again and again, traversing
dark streets—it is always
night—eerily quiet
with noirish cinema light.

Every one contains stairs
and phantom rooms, windows
in hallways and former
inhabitants—not quite ghosts–
but there, there, as much
as I, in what is called real
life, keep moving on.

This may have some relation to today’s NaPoWriMo prompt of the road not taken. Maybe.