An Intimate Habitation

We were all monsters in those days.
Home was our monstrous world we’d made,
A home full of us in the rooms,
A home with hardly any room.

One by one, we removed ourselves.
We thought of this as adventure.
We were leaving our monstrous world
Of crowded rooms for something else.

But we each hoped something different,
And none of us came back content
With what we’d found or failed to find,
And each turned and went out again.

The house grew emptier, older.
No one brought infants anymore.
The monsters left were frail, silvered
A bit at the temples of God.

At some point, our monstrous world reached
An appealing desuetude,
The ruined rooms claimed by crickets,
The walls overtaken by vines.

At the end, you wanted to stay,
Lost your envy of those who’d left,
But by then, you yourself were left
An uninhabitable wreck.