NaPoWriMo 2022 // Day 4
I choose a messy house.
Crumbs collecting along baseboards
occasional cobwebs draping
the corners
dishes
and more dishes
and still more,
a never-ending stream of dirty or drying
dishes
on the countertops.
I choose a messy house
and a sticky floor
and sitting outside on the porch steps
in the middle of a springtime day
to seize the sunlight.
I choose a messy house
and piles of dirty clothes
and penning poems when the
spark sizzles in my soul
and the words well up like water.
I choose a messy house
and grime in the bathrooms
and reading “the magic school bus explores the senses”
on the couch for the 647th time
with small thumb-suckers invading my space.
I choose an unmade bed
and a ring in the tub
and a spill in the oven
and splatters in the fridge
and crud under the table
and last week’s leftovers on the chairs
and a drooping plant over there
and paperwork leaking out
of every tray.
I choose a messy house
not because I love the layers
of all I’m leaving undone,
and not because
I am anything
society will label me
(lazy, slobbish, selfish, or “a shame”)
I choose what I choose
because
I refuse
to keep doing it all
while having
exactly
none of it.