Parameters

thirty-three years go by

and not once do you come home

to find a man sitting in your bedroom

that is

a man you don't know

who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:

lock your back door, you idiot

however invincible you imagine yourself to be

you are wrong

thirty-three years go by

and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares

your breasts hang like a woman's

and you don't jump at shadows anymore

instead you may simply pause to admire

those that move with the grace of trees

dancing past streetlights

and you walk through your house without turning on lamps

sure of the angle from door to table

from table to staircase

sure of the number of steps

seven to the landing

two to turn right

then seven more

sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory

across your bedroom

and collapse with a sigh onto your bed

shoes falling

thunk thunk

onto the floor

and there will be no strange man

suddenly all that time sitting there

sitting there on what must be the prize chair

in your collection of uncomfortable chairs

with a wild look in his eyes

and hands that you cannot see

holding what?

you do not know

so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation

that you are painfully slow to adjust

if only because

yours is not that genre of story

still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies

no bullets shattering glass

instead fear sits patiently

fear almost smiles when you finally see him

though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years

and now he has let himself in

and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares

though you think you see, in your naivete

that he is empty handed

and this brings you great relief

at the time

new as you are, really, to the idea that

even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters

they can all change

while you're out one night having a drink with a friend

some big hand may be turning a big dial

switching channels on your dreams

until you find yourself lost in them

and watching your daily life with the sound off

and of course having cautiously turned down the flame under your eyes

there are more shadows around everything

your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse

your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead

presiding over your supposed repose

not really sleep at all

just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds

a clanking pipe

a creaking branch

the footfalls of a cat

all of this and maybe

the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat

as you walk him step by step back to the door

having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea

soft leather, big feet, almond eyes

the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later

with his clipboard

and his pistol

in your hallway