Poem: My Dream Home #the100dayproject Day57

My Dream Home

I could fill my hands with dirty laundry and food crusted dishes, 

I could track down that suspicious smell in the basement 

I could waste my time taking a tooth brush to the grout 

I could grab the broomstick and sweep up my wood floors, 

I could fix that squeaky door or fiddle with its jambed lock, 

I could paint the deck and replace that rotted step. 

I could get on my hands and knees and dig up the weeds. 

I could fluff out the rugs and mow the lawn until I'm sore, 

Or I could walk up the stairs and ignore the squeaky step 

Ignore the papers and books piled high on my desk 

And close the door and crack open my unfilled notebook 

Click my eager pen and smell the wet ink across the page. 

It isn’t practical or fixing up the American Dream, but 

It is a labor as satisfying as getting dirt under my fingernails. 

My body bent over my desk as if my notebook were a house to tend, 

But something more precious than a thing to live in. 

These words are not a thing, these words are me. 

A space inside myself that must out pour like a floodlight 

That trumpets its yellow into the darkest night. 

It is the purpose that so many people cannot say they have 

A life’s works, my dream home is within me and it takes me everyday 

To keep it in a condition worth sharing with the world, 

Each word a nail in the wood planks to hold everything up, 

Each sentence a roof, the siding, the deck, the kitchen, 

The little details that need fixing and need work 

Each poem a room that I build to house a piece of me in.