when i was born,
my mom said that i lived in a trailer.
she said it was nice.
i can not remember it.

when i was two years old,
my mother and my father moved us to a duplex.
my childhood best friend lived next door,
there were cat tails growing in a ditch behind us,
and the garage was a giant mouth
with bicycle teeth.
it is blurry in my mind.

when i was five years old,
they took me to a house.
it was an older house,
one with an '80s basement
and monsters in the laundry room.
it seems like a movie missing a few scenes.

when i turned eight,
we moved to a new house.
they moved while i was at a Titanic exhibit
at the science center.
it was the house where my father turned bad,
and we made him leave,
and he resides there now.
it is something i read in a book one year ago.

when i was thirteen,
we didn't have a home to go home to.
we stayed where we could.
we moved to a fire hazard.
we left again.
it seems like a nightmare.

when i was fourteen,
we found another home.
it was the best we could do.
it was infested with crickets
and mold on the concrete.
and my best friend lived down the street,
and we no longer speak.
it is a dream.

when i was fifteen,
we scurried off to an apartment.
the buildings were blue,
and the people were rude,
and the downstairs neighbor always makes his children cry.
and another neighbor is a stripper,
she is never home.
and another escapes with pills,
the prescription type,
she smokes a lot and talks on the phone.
even this is beginning to fade away.