Writing by Avery Melhado
It was 932 square feet of pure freedom. I nearly cried
when I opened that door. We spent the week eating dinner
on box springs, watching movies we’d already seen.
Tacking posters on walls and mounting frames with thumbtacks.
We’re never getting that security deposit back. No regrets.
Summer was lonely and effortless and full. Our old friends
came to visit more than we maybe deserved and it was beautiful.
Full of 4am tarot readings and getting high on the balcony.
Boxes of furniture carted up from the package room. We swam
in the pool after dark, our new tattoos kept out of water.
It was an eternal sleepover. It was July heat. It was God.
I fell in love on the couch, drank coffee at the kitchen island.
Fall in the city— all hands on thighs and pasta dinners
and cake with melted frosting. Polaroid pictures
and homework parties. You drew every face that mattered
on a sticky note. Slowly, we took them down, as the characters
faded. Friends leaving as quickly as they arrived. Boys in and out
of beds, the same for a while then different again.
I’ll miss all of it. The way the washing machine bangs against the wall
next to your bedroom. The mice that were really just ghosts.
The broken building fire alarm and the smoke detector that goes off
every time we open the oven. It’ll be a memory soon enough,
a funny one at that. A coat of nostalgia over old annoyances, a reminder
of a life once lived. We’ll move out and take the doormat with us.
But for now it’s one more night in this room of my own.
The sound of footsteps from above slowly sings me to sleep,
the familiarity of the shared apartment complex we’ve made our own.
I’ll savor it while I can, knowing it won’t ever feel the same.
932 square feet of freedom. 932 square feet of home.
