SandScript 2021

It was a house of contradictions
plaques and degrees
rows of shiny metal squares that housed yellowed paper
Harvard Stanford
and an empty garage whose cars had been repossessed
a bartop
made from discarded bottle caps
remnants of the hours upon hours upon hours of drinking
lined up like dots of candy glazed in a sheen of glue
an over-sized dictionary on a large wooden stand
pages filled with red checkmarks
from the times my father forced me
to look up a word I mispronounced
where I stood and pretended to lecture
where I stood and pretended people listened
supple leather
lamps with tassels
and in the bathroom cartoons copied from the Sunday funnies
drawn in stiff sticky black acrylic
entire comic strips that looked down at you while you sat on the toilet
people
whose names I didn’t know
people
who were there for days or weeks or months
or only hours
and then nothing
I shuffled down the hallways bunny in hand
nothing more than decoration
like the paint on the wall
a guest
a visitor
nothing
nothing made sense
and yet it was all I knew
come here little thing he said to me
it was the naked man with the sheet stuck in his ass
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