1.  Settling
    The pond beside my house was often empty-
    little more than a glorified drainage ditch, an
    unfortunate dome carved out of the earth, a
    holdover space where rainfall went to wait.
    Stagnant.
    Out of the way.
    Carefully moved aside where it could sit
    until waterways were clear.
    Until there was more room.
    I think of it often,
    shut behind its fence.
    Nothing but a temporary home for the overflow.

2.  Homemade Swampland
    When I was young enough to not listen,
    I would sit in my back yard with the hose on full blast,
    Settled at the base of the hill watching,
    waiting
    as the grass around me swelled and sunk.
    I liked the way it squished.
    How the dirt would turn
    to mud and the grass would be
    half-drowned in the new world I had
    unleashed.
    It felt right.
    It still does.
    but as we grow we learn to care about things like
    the cost of water and
    the question of waste and eventually you
    stop.

3.  Waterlogged
    When you spend long enough in the water,
    no matter how careful you are,
    it gets trapped in your ears.
    A horrible feeling, but even still
    the irritation at the empty space in my ears taunts me.
    And I eventually cave, knocking the trapped free,
    even knowing how it will bother me
    when I inevitably resurface.

4.  Soaked
    The dishwasher in my first apartment was old.
    Nothing ever fully dried
    water clinging to plastic tupperware like its last hope
    and on the floor in front,
    a puddle still accrued, despite the visits from maintenance.
    Mold does not appear overnight,
    but after so many months,
    it holds your home in an iron grip
    and there is nothing you can do but wait another three moths
    to finally have the energy to tear it all apart
    and clean and repair things yourself.
    It's only then that you realize how bad it's all gotten
    and how little you know about fixing it.

5.  Home
    I think I outgrew my childhood home
    before I outgrew single digits.
    It didn't change anything.
    We were always stuck there.
    It was the spot in the river
    where the current falls dead
    where the silt and sand spins hopelessly
    where nothing moves forward anymore.
    I was too young to understand
    until I wasn't, and it was too late.
    I laid in my bed and imagined my body slipping back into nothing,
    leaving just the same as I had arrived.
    I drag myself away from the damned place
    but somehow I still find myself pulled right back.

    and the stagnancy in my veins bleeds
    like mold in damp corners
    and dust on abandoned shelves
    and stains on every single carpet.
    It's not in me to flow.