Unsteady Frame, Tenant Agreement

This scaffolding of bone and skin,

a sudden lurch and then I catch

myself, a stranger from within.

The quick, involuntary jerk

of muscle, a surprised complaint.

It's not entirely my own work,

this thing that holds the mind's faint paint.

My wrist, the skin hangs loose, a drape,

a small, unnoticed, flabby fold.

It hints at some eventual escape,

a story that has not been told

by me. The lease is running out,

the terms are always vague. I move

through rooms, aware, without a doubt,

this house will not forever prove

my own.