Holiday Horrible

We went to
his parents' house in Milford
and ate bad food
I began to hate him
to shrink back into the railing
when I passed him on the stairs.

One thought repeated
in my head:
I want to change my life.
I began to imagine
moving out of our apartment.
The couch we bought together
was an almost insurmountable problem,
but I decided to let him keep it.

So there I sat
in the giant king-size bed
his parents put us in,
in the smoky, unbreathable air
of their god-awful house
in Milford, Michigan, an
all-white suburb of Detroit
with sulphur-smelling water
gushing out of the taps

and then he arrived in the bedroom
in his new Christmas shirt
tucked in, so unlike him,
and he handed me a glass
of pure clear filtered water
from the bottle we had put in the fridge

I evaporated my plans
I didn't want to change anything
I just wanted to go home,
back to my life.
This isn't my life, in Milford, Michigan;

this isn't my house; these aren't
our clothes. In twenty-four hours
I will cross out this entire poem.

Jessy Randall

Jessy Randall would appreciate any comment on this poem:
jessyrandall@yahoo.com