Inventory of Retreat

The tape on the boxes is starting to peel.

I’m sitting on springs that I knew as a kid,

trying to figure out how I should feel

about hiding away like I actually did.

My father is walking just down the hall,

the same heavy step and the smell of the soap.

I stare at the shadows that lean on the wall

and the tangled-up mess of a fraying old rope.

On the ceiling, the stars that I glued in the dark

are still holding onto a dim, sickly green.

They’re a dusty and plastic and pathetic mark

of a version of me that hasn't been seen.