under the rug

I used to want my writing to be lyrical and polished, full of descriptions and rife with a lesson. Now, with the advent of AI, I find myself spending mornings yelling at a machine: DO NOT CHANGE THE ORDER OF MY WORDS YOU STUPID FUCKER THIS IS IMPORTANT STOP CHANGING MY WRITING. There’s a woven braided rug in my brain that fits the dustpan of my life so perfectly I forget about the dirt gathering underneath, the angles of my thoughts curving full and rounded around whatever I’ve shoved below. Under the rug, under the rug. Shove it all away.

Now I aim for my writing to stay human and keep its rhythm. I want the reader inside my brain, inside my existence, moving forward word by word, except nothing is that visceral anymore because everything is online. Understanding is never the final goal. Only survival. The hope is they make it through the Drake Passage of my writing: through addiction, through isolation, through years that tried to swallow me whole. Some of us never stop crossing.

Slogging away trying to get this piece going, so I’ll give you the thesis straight: fuck folks who are buying investment properties. I’ve yet again got an unstable housing situation because I’m sensitive to noise, I’ve got a hair-trigger temper, and drywall is thin in these properties owned by girls ten years my junior. Life is a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and swallowing your pride becomes an art when you’ve tried to be done with the scratch tickets, the fuckery, the liars, the waking up scared not knowing if you’ll have a place to live.

The truth at the bottom isn’t that I’m an exceptional person living out my values, refusing to become part of the problem. It’s more likely I’m lazy and I find it satisfying to live on the edge, no burnout train required. I would rather stand in line at the rescue mission food pantry than take a check from another person for a place to live. The other day I turned out of Whole Foods and handed a twenty to the man in the median. He said, oh man I just got out of jail, thank you so much, and I told him I wasn’t sure I’d have a place of my own in a few months either. I don’t give a fuck if he went and got drunk on my dollar. I hope he did.

That’s my problem. I’ve had so little that when I have a lot I want to give it away. I’m barely housed but I’ve fired up my Couchsurfing profile, ready to offer a roof to anyone passing through. It’s not like it used to be in the world of surfing couches. Maybe I’m too old, maybe we’ve all aged out of couch guests. Either way I’m pushed out of spaces over and over, and the smell of my dog’s fur has become my home. In the small moments I start to feel safe I sink back into the couch and wonder if I’ll ever live in a space larger than a hotel room. The agoraphobia has become a personality trait, and the smaller the better. But life didn’t want me small, at least not physically, and so I’m left incongruent, trying to shove my spindly limbs into spaces small enough that I won’t be noticed, won’t be a problem to eradicate. But sometimes being a problem means being alive.

Being alive leaves marks. Some are easy to clean: the black rubber of street shoes on a gym floor, fluffs of dog fur in the air, the indentation of a body on a bed with no frame because it’s moved so much. I’ve learned to measure a space by how fast I can retreat. The pleasure of counting steps across the living room curdles fast into the horror of how much there is to move. I’ve stopped decorating. I arrange myself in corners, bring my computer, start humming. A single desk. Shoes lined up in exit strategy. Life in a few Rubbermaid containers.

The landlord stopped by the other morning, pretty sure to check the drywall (FUCK), and I keep wondering what she saw that made her decide not to renew. I feel my cheeks go warm: was it the bare walls, the pictures half-up because command strips don’t hold? The missing bed frame. The secondhand desk. The books on the floor. What is it that I own, what is it that I’m lacking. Maybe if I were more put together, I could stay.

I’ve done my best to pick furniture I can carry alone. Help that isn’t paid rarely comes, so everything is collected and kept with the hope it will make it in the back of a U-Haul. Heirlooms crack not because I don’t care but because life barrels forward and I’m chipped, too. Everything is second-hand now. Even me. The furniture isn’t heavy but the thought of whether this will be the time I can stay becomes heavy as the world, and I’m lifting with my knees instead of my back.

For two more months I’ll let my things sit where they belong for now: books on the floor, a single chair for everything, dishes put away, cookbooks in the corner, pictures on the floor or in the closet. Unfinished. In flux. I’ve got terrible regrets about a credenza left in Denver, records sold too cheap to a friend with several houses to store them, a cat taken from me with no goodbye, a soft hoodie with big pockets. Some nights I lie with my eyes closed and the thought of something lost enters and I feel my heart spread out in my chest, pumping with the blood of regret. No matter how big the rug, the dirt always comes back.