Square Footage

The masking tape came off in strips,

taking a thin skin of drywall with it.

Beneath the beige, the blue is still there—

the color of the sky I stared at

when I was ten and believed the ceiling was temporary.

The bed is gone now.

Only the dust remains, a gray rectangle

tracing the floor like a chalk outline of a body.

I stand in the middle of where I used to sleep,

waiting for the walls to recognize me.