There are days when I no
longer feel generous.
There are days when I don’t
feel like pretending to be
a good guest in your house. Besides,
I’ve just in time remembered
it’s my house and was so mine
before you came into the picture,
so why should I have to suffer
the indignity of paying rent
or answering to a property
manager, of trying to find
an unfastened back window
or trying to jimmy a lock
in order to enter what was my
indigenous space to begin with?
I want to keep the water in the well
free of contamination. I want
to sleep in my own bed and use
my own toilet, have access
to the clothes in my closet
and the books on my shelves.
And if I want to wake up late
or sing in the shower or cook
breakfast in just my undies
you don’t have the right
to issue executive orders:
you don’t have the right
to tell me I don’t know
how to run my own affairs;
that I eat the wrong
kinds of food and buy from
the wrong kinds of people.
Don’t tell me my desire to send
my kids to good schools is unseemly;
that I pick the wrong kinds
of friends to run with;
that my values have all
gone downhill— Don’t tell me
I need to be hectored on all
the ways that threaten your own
utter lack of discernment
and respectability, hence
the daily wars you wage on me.