I am the place in which something has occurred.

First love was fertilized in me under the warm moonlit air of summer.

For two weeks it was fed until that love

became the stage on which my heart would break;

for the first time.

Bold, youthful exuberance built architectural wonders,

in the form of dreams, in my mind only to have

repetitive waves of realism wash them away like sandcastles on the shore.

I have been a safe harbor for strangers on nights

when loneliness was a little too rough.

A few came, pirates in disguise, and stole away with thin slices off my sails.

At birth a tree was planted in my belly.

Every year it grows. Thicker. Taller.

Some days I swear it feels like it is choking me;

and all I’d have to do is tip my head back

and howl for its bower to reach the moon.

*

I am the place in which many somethings have occurred.

And I know that before my time is through

I will experience, within me, many more.

None being more or less grand than the day Death

will whisper across my threshold; a benevolent thief,

who will strip my walls of their tapestries, extinguish every flickering flame,

and leave me a ghost town where nothing, not even memory, can live.