Regular Poem: Saturday

I’m only ever home
long enough to
groan about
the dishes piled in the sink
the clothes littering my room
the unkempt stack of movies on the living room shelf
the walls with mismatched art.

I wonder
when I had time
to eat the food
that used to be on those dishes.
Oh,
I realize:
I ate most of that
in my car.

It’s easy
to keep the house tidy
when you live alone.
Except when it’s not–
when you somehow want
to make your life harder
by being lazy
when you don’t have to be
so that you can be
industrious
when you don’t want to be.

It’s so lonely
knowing you’ve made your own mess
and that you’ve made your own mess
messier
and that the messes you haven’t made–
garages and yards and bookshelves
that still cling to
former residents
like a sad song
you can’t avoid even when you change the radio station–
are still yours to clean up.

It’s Saturday now,
and I’ve almost convinced myself
not to leave the house
until it looks like
an adult woman lives here.
Almost.