Couch, Draft

11/7/25

I’ll sit on our thousand-pound plaid couch and listen to you tell me how your family wishes me well, misses me, is worried about me, and I’ll stare at a spot on the tv screen that looks like the hole I dug out back when I was still on Sheridan street, and I’ll nod along to your kind-intentioned words because you don’t know that it’s twisting my heart and leaving streaks of soap on the rug, and I’ll tell my family it’s a shame you never met them and I won’t be able to sleep at all because I don’t think I ever will, and I’ll sit on the couch and drink from your beer and listen to you tell me how it’s all okay now, it’s good now, it’s normal now, and I’ll understand because I always will, and I’ll keep my words in a sealed box and shove it as high up as it can go, and I’ll leave it here when we’re gone, and I’ll leave everything I ever felt in these rooms because it’s not going to make it any better to stick it on a dolly and decorate my next closet, and I’ll tell you I would love to see your family because I really truly would, but I’ll keep the rest of it sealed, and I’ll put another layer of tape every time I want to open it, and I’ll cry when this couch is gone, and I’ll cry when this house is a memory, and I’ll dig a hole in the backyard and put my shoes at the bottom and I’ll bury them there, and I’ll throw the box on top and I’ll keep track of how long it takes to decompose, and I’ll let you finish what you’re saying but I won’t say anything back because my feet are getting sticky from the mud and I have a few more lives ahead of me that haven’t been dealt, and I’ll retire for the night and I’ll retire forever, and I’ll sit up against the wall and wonder if my eyes are burning for any particular reason or if this is just how they feel now, with plaid thread and well wishes stuck in the tearducts and nothing but my own feet at the end of the bed.

— ODH