Member-only story
A hollow wooden staircase — more like
an angled ladder — led up to my bedroom,
so that I was always well forewarned,
– by the sound of the clack of
shod or bare feet on the planks –
of anyone coming up to see me.
And the sounds came to speak
to me as a voice, often telling
me exactly who to expect; someone
fast or slow, heavy or light,
old or young, angry or calm.
And as a somewhat retarded
teenager — meaning always
way behind any teenage curve —
I remember morbidly obsessing about
a certain girlfriend. Was she the one
for me? And how to decide? And
if you’re young, and inexperienced,
you think things over and over again,
trying every thought from
every angle, winding yourself
upstairs to nowhere, as if it
were life and death.
