Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Listening For Keys

I should have stayed in Texas.
It was 75 degrees there.
I could have saved my skin
from the heat and learned
what loneliness feels like.
I could have slept in late
in the room with the blackout drapes
and walked down the halls of that
white house
listening for keys.
I could have dipped my feet
in the pool and watched the wasps
build their mud nests.
I could have cooked on portable
gas burners and hunted for pots in my mother’s roach
cabinets.
I could have sang to my dog,
and gotten needles from Hui,
and sat on the beach alone.
I would have written songs
there
with no t.v.,
and no internet to distract me
from myself.
I would have sat in that closet,
the one my sister locked me in
when I was a child,
and learned that nothing
can hurt me
in the dark.