The First Floor Apartment on 84th by Lorien Vidal

I lived where you live
I spit right where you eat
Right where you’re sitting
Under the soles of your feet

Did I leave an echo
A residual murmur
A spectral shift
Of what I once was…

Is there a whisper in the night
Of desperation I felt
From the time that he was
And I shed all my rights

All of my goods
Like a molting of all that was pure
When he lured me out into dead of night
I shed my innocence

Where you find your keys
Where he knocked on my window
Where panicked pre-dawn 911-calls
Fell on unexpectedly hesitant ears

And they sent no one
They sent me no one
Until after I vandalized this room with screams
And thereafter it was filled with sorrow

Is there resonance of my guilt there?
Is the ghost of my father still where I left him?
Does he whisper what was?
Do you hear it?

Does it scare you to know
That my fractured-self lived there
Does the perceptible vapor of my tears still linger
Are there knocks on your window or taps on the door

Does the doorbell jar you while you’re fast asleep
Are you calm as you once were before

You lived where I lived
Since I spat where you eat

Right there where you’re sitting
Does Dad still tap on the desk while you sleep
Does anyone peer through the window
Above your wakeful head

Do you sleep with the blade under your pillow
Do you live your nights in dread
Do you cry into your pillow in darkness
Like I did when I lived where you live