Roommates

My roommate and I,
We don’t share a space anymore.
We war.

For a month now
We have avoided eachother’s glares and glances
Knowing eyes to speak violence unclearly
While feet stand quiet and firm
Doubly masked by red pumas

Once familiar socks
Who walked on backs
And weren’t ashamed of sole designs
and toe holes
Their necks now concealed
Only peak over felt interiors

You see,
Overcommitment and boyfiends
Have more victims than just me
And my time
When little girls with toe holes
Know I don’t have time for real conversation
And wear shoes to pretend they’ve got business too

And all too soon
We meet eachother
Locked in monosyllabic silences
Desks turned back to back
Apology criticism and compliment
Stowed away in tiny lockets of self pity
Relentlessly strung about our necks.
“Excuse me”
“the left one”
“nice job on dinner”
Only thoughts
Clawing at the back of clenched teeth

What little creeps through
Only drops of nicety strung like strings
Hanging from tattered jeans
Tearing away without a second thought
Only inconvenience

But silence to such violence is one step too far
When words in my head
No longer turn backs on only her classes
But now her new romance
When hearts of kind
Locked in space
Become deaf to eachothers beats
Silence serves only self
And so today my
My hand bypasses my tongue
And signals the final battle

Barricading myself behind
A wall of dirty laundry
I release a single sheet of paper
To drift down the slope of downy hungry blue jeans,
A white tobogan
On a polychromatic hill
Dodging left
Then right
And curling forward
Landing its cargo
Just across the Mason-Dixon
Words spill out onto the clear red carpet
A blank white sheet
Surrounded by tiny black scratches
She hates a mess
(and has sensors in the floor)
Fearing my own
Exposed paranoias
I duck down into safety
I can imagine her hair writhing in the air
As she spins
Sensing something amiss
Tiny hissing heads darting to and fro
Seeking some source to the distraction.
Inch by inch I creep to the top of my hill
Peeking back over the pile I meet her eyes
She is picking up words with a smile
“I’ve been looking for these.”