i never understood the phrase
home is where the heart is
until i was shaking on the floor of
my hospital room and it was nothing
but walls
and even when i found the energy to
decorate with cliché little things
like fairy lights, posters, my
skeletal “art”
i felt the room swallow me whole
until i was nothing but a grain of sand
my new roommate was a wrinkly zucchini-girl
and i tried not to speak to her
but we heard each other cry in the night
and we never said a word
but i could feel her eyes on me
a girl down the hall
heard me talking about my addiction and
she told me she would pray for me
later that day she pushed me
into a wall and pressed her
lips against mine
then told me i was tempting her,
i was a sin
just waiting to happen
so i sat in the dark outside her room every
night before i went to sleep
and sometimes she would
come out
and hold my hands
and tell me she loved me