Settling

Six months of sleeping on the floor

and sitting on a box of black.

I don’t go looking for the door

with this dull pressure in my back.

I pull my boots on in the dark,

the plastic biting through the jeans,

leaving a grid-work, purple mark,

a map of what this living means.

The corners hold a heavy dust,

a fine and gray industrial grime,

a settle of the things you trust

to carry you through all this time.