in my mother's basement once upon a time she ******* a clothes line though most of the time the line was used to hang up hangers precariously hooked to a rope becoming less taut as the years go on
the paradox of garage sale hand-me-downs of broken homes as bodies for clothes become subtracted they make room for memories we grow heavier by as the hangers continue to multiply unused clothes hangers are sacred they are ghost as zygotes
back then there were days I would wear my woven leather belt for an inverted neck tie on those days tie the other end to the wooden cross supports in the basement ceiling then tip-toeing up on a beat-up old stool play chicken a game of chicken with nobody a side of extra mc chicken sauce for the soul
I wonder now how if anyone would've wondered if I had died never really learning how to wear a belt or how to properly tie a neck-tie kids today wear their pants too low and parents back then were way too given to involuntary penance
to up the ante I would write a list on the wooden beams in the ceiling each time I got up there for all the reasons I got up there in attempt to embellish the exit sign singing ugly duckling swan song echo sedated by the attempt training wheels for Icarus syndrome
it wasn't that my youth was in disillusion I just never really learned how to measure distance properly a pair of breaking parents an unwanted pregnancy "What's with in arms' reach?" a game of catch a game of release a flight of stairs in one step "it's not your fault kid but you're gonna have to get hurt anyway"
funny how when you are teetering on stoic infinity balanced like an idle pendulum a noose becomes a life-support system dance like no one is watching
I don't play those games anymore my bones have gotten too heavy to bet against memories I still wish to change knees too weighted to two-step the precipice on weekends
and since practicing how to use my legs again and again I now prefer walking this earth wearing my belt around my equator over drawstrings around my neck
the basement has since been renovated no more wooden crosses exposed in the ceiling I don't play childish games anymore I just do my laundry there