We never got used to the drunk next door
who broke bottles on the stoop past midnight, cussed all night,
staggered into us as we left the apartment.
He was a feature of the landscape we were glad to leave
when we moved away.
Along with the upstairs landlords
whose children jumped off the couch above my head, all day,
while I napped with my newborn,
who thought 3 a.m. was a good time to install carpeting, KaChunk KaChunk all night,
who coated the back yard in weed killer, fumes rolling into our ground floor apartment,
they were a feature of the landscape we never got used to.
So we moved away.
We never got used to the dirty old busybody next door with his nasty comments.
We never pulled up the blinds or trimmed the hedge on his side of the house.
We just moved away. Again.
You'd think you'd get used to the pain - it's a bore. There's no excitement in pain.
Just the startled moment when it comes again, crashing like the bottles on the stoop.
Just the deadly hours of enduring, KaChunk, KaChunk,
don't pull up the blinds and let it look in.
Never get used to the scraping, boring, searing, pounding.
Pain management?
I thought pain could recede, a feature of the landscape to ignore, like the cracks in the pavement.
I never thought this was a landscape I could not move away from.
No moving van. No packing boxes.
No new home without the pain.
Open your boxes and find the drunken, staggering, inconsiderate,
dirty old busybody pain.
No ear plugs. No gas masks. No prisoners taken. No quarter given.
Never get used to it.
