For the first time since childhood my bed was in the corner and this felt safe to be tucked in by walls.
Sometimes, I woke up with bruises from hitting it, but I never moved my bed.

You have thin walls and broken blinds and crumbling brick and leaking windows and I cried when my parents first walked out your doors because I fear people walking out on me.

And you became this one place of safety and home.

There is the living room where I sat with two strangers I was suddenly contractually tied to.
There is the bed that I sat on the end of with my fingers measuring my wrist one morning and Clara suddenly said, “you’re going to be fine” and there is where I realized I do not hide so well as I think.
There is the tile I stared at when I purged the last time.

There is where Jack read my poetry.
There is where I lay laughing and living like my younger self dreamed.
There are the stairs we tumbled down, high and happy, and there is where Clara and I sat talking until four am.
All around is where what happened at the party stayed at the party.

There is where I had *** the third time and the two hundredth time.
There is where I popped the shame and admitted it.
There is where I asked Joseph where his life turned and went wrong. And there is the spot where I fell in love for the second time. And there is the spot where Sam almost caught us, like suppressed teenagers, skin to skin.

There is the picture window we loved to leave open while we cleaned and cooked and baked.
There is the door we left unlocked for Michael and Sam and Sarah and Tommy to breeze in and out of.
There is the window and door we kept closed and locked from the prying eyes of the neighbor downstairs.

There is where I sat when I looked Clara and Abby in the eyes and lied.
And there is where I stood when they caught onto the truth.
And there is where I cried when the second love shattered.
There is the spot on the floor I talked to when I said, “maybe this is what I deserve.” And there is what Abby widened her eyes towards when she said, “I wish I could make you see it’s not.”
There is the wall I leaned against when I told Michael and Bret, too drunk to know my words from each other, about the moment of force. And there is where they said, “do not ever date men who treat you like that again when you deserve a perfect one.”
And there is the corner where Michael sat months after I admitted I had done it again.

There is the spot where Conner said he was falling in love. And there is the spot where I did not say it back.
There is where Andrew picked me up to kiss me in the glow of the street light before he went home.
There is the front step where Caleb said, “Wait, first, will you kiss me?”

There is the floorboard where Abby set her laptop and we drank whiskey and ate clementines and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower on her last night.
There is the counter where Michael taught me how to do tequila shots.
There is the parking spot where Rhiannon and I unraveled our lives and then intertwined them to put them back together.

You have seen these broken hearts and drunken nights and ***** filled violence and maybe I am walking out with more bruises than I walked in with, but you became this one place of home.