September 26, 2021:
The worst is its darkness.
200' pines towering above all sides,
blocking the sun.
The walls are brown, and slanted inward,
like a tall dark coffin.
It's necessary to turn on artificial lights as early as noon,
to read or avoid obstacles or experience any kind of sense of daytime.
Or maybe the worst is the rent.
$4,600/mo for a tall dark coffin,
where the sun is blocked by looming 200' pines
and the power and the water are constantly out.
Or maybe the worst is the loss of privacy.
Where you rent thirteen acres to put some space to the world,
but the world hikes up your driveway and along the public trails
which cut through your backyard.
Or maybe the worst is the petulant landlord,
a well-to-do foot-stamping four-year-old who refuses repairs.
Or maybe it's the dimwitted assistant at the property management company,
who has to have simple things explained to her over and over before the lights go on
behind her well-meaning but entirely spark-free eyes.
Or maybe there is no worst.
Maybe it's all equally the same.
A prison of scarcity you did not choose and
may never overcome.