House Where I Never Lived

House Where I Never Lived
© Surazeus
2024 11 27

I ride the bus far across town at noon 
to visit the house where I never lived 
with the vague intention of finding things 
I left behind in boxes of lost truths, 
but every photo of me I can find 
reveals rotten sorrow of the dead tree. 

I throw my useless memories in the trash 
to forget how many years have now passed 
since I went to live in the empty church 
where I keep attempting to talk to God, 
but he always hangs up the telephone 
and tells me not to call him anymore. 

Apple trees blossom on the river shore 
from ancient conviction that I deserve 
love from strangers who try to steal my name 
though I give them every heart I can find 
stuck inside the fractured stone of lost faith 
since I leave out the riddle no one solves. 

Each time we stand in the forest and talk 
about things that happened since we last met 
I leave out so many painful events 
that flutter as leaves on the reborn trees 
with amazement at beauty of despair 
which I try to sell in the marketplace. 

Though the bird that still lives inside my heart 
beats crippled wings against my fragile skull, 
I cannot open the cage of my ribs 
to let my happiness fly free of rage 
which I encase in walking stick of fear 
to help me walk to where I do not live. 

The stories I tell the stop sign are not 
about the passion of my love for you 
which I hide in letters I never mail, 
yet someone down the street is calling me, 
mad at me about something I once did, 
so I leave my new shoes under the swing. 

After visiting every lonely house 
where I once lived in my journey nowhere, 
I decide to walk the nameless highway 
and leave letters I wrote to you in grass 
where they become bears, horses, wolves, and deer 
who sit around the television set. 

In my mind I will fly into the sky 
so I can ask the divine cloud man why 
I am always alone in dream of Earth 
without calculating what hope is worth, 
then I will eat the apple of my heart 
so I can change fortune of my star chart.