There are rats in the walls,
And some days I feel like that, too.
There are rats in me, and most days,
I am a home, and we can all just exist
Exactly as we're meant to.
But not all days.
Some days, there's a chewing, and a scratching,
And so so much noise, in the night,
While I sit in the dark just trying to find rest.
A rat is a rat, and they do what rats do,
And sometimes that means they wake in my mind
Bloodied and dripping and missing pieces
And sometimes that means they cry,
And I can't hate them for it,
Because he was so young when he died,
Or because he had a nightmare about his wife,
Or she remembered the warehouse;
Sometimes, I am the rat, with them,
Dreaming low rivers and closet doors and
There's that blanket, that red blanket,
And the wall is gold and I am screaming and
Clawing and chewing and making
So much fucking noise and of course
Sometimes there are nights,
Long and dark and silent where I am
The fucking wall and I am the fucking rat
At the same fucking time and we're all living here,
Screaming,
And sometimes,
I think maybe I have always been just
A fucking rat
And maybe I wasn't ever really the wall at all
And those are the nights I mourn me,
I mourn them,
I mourn the idea
Of being a home.
