Snow Fort

This room has a name. Living. I write my name in it
on pieces of paper and strew them everywhere.
I am snowflakes. Fill the room with fragments.
I am the mess in this room. Bottles in the corner.
Socks under the bed. Scribble them on scraps
not to forget them. Flakes of the skin I've shed.

The universe keeps getting bigger but I've stayed the same size all these years.
There is another place for me.
Strange visitors eat, play, and laugh as I remain here, and each leaves a residue behind.
I am not the floor or walls.
I am a residual resident ripping bandages off my skin slowly. Hairless patches left to caress.
I am a ripped corner
of notebook paper.
This is not my home or else why are there still voices at this hour? Why are the floors still creaking,
the dog snoring?

I built a fort in this room. Sheets hanging from above.
Come back here with me so that we can be alone.
Everything's here in this little tent. Crates of poetry,
old tax forms and unopened bills. Don't touch them.
Lie down beside me. This is where I come to breathe.
We're safe here for now. The paper is protective.
Portable. Easily dismantled. No voices or dogs.
I like listening to you breathing. I like your body.
I like you here within these paper walls of mine
with that gauze of diffused light upon your skin.

I wrote my name everywhere. This fort is
made from my name. This is our quinzhee in the snowstorm.
Bodies pressed together beneath the cusp of the wild, vast and brutal.
Let the storm scream and moan at us. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad it's you.
I'm taking you. I won't harm your body. I won't waste your body. I've got you. Right here.
I'm on top of you looking down to search for my reflection. Somewhere in your eyes
I can see myself, refracted by your perspective. Let yourself scream and moan.
No need to hold back from me, I'll take it all. I am the roof, floor, and walls.
Clutching. Shaking. Bed squeaking. A storm hiding from a storm,
ferocious and then calm. Now the fort is a snow globe.
Paper floats around us. This is home for now.

I'm folding sheets and filing papers.
Packing. The fort is transient.
I wish I could pack you too. A fixture in my fort.
Winter showed us many kinds of snow
this year -- light, powdery, thick, wet.
But I've never believed that no two snowflakes are the same.
There are too many.