Describe a bedroom from your past in a series of descriptive paragraphs or a poem. It could be your childhood room, your grandmother’s room, a college dormitory or another significant space from your life.
My million roommates
28 April 20
0700
Tucked into the arms of the building
I had a glimpse of the great lake
My galley kitchen was big enough for 1 person
As so many studio apartments are
The wind would howl day and night
The Venetian blinds were contractor grade
My futon bed sofa was the only furniture
Besides the metal student desk and folding chair
The walk in closet never saw daylight
As it was encased in the apartment
And the carpet on the floor was threadbare and worn
Across the street was a supermarket
And the ground floor had the laundry room, no heat in the winter and broken fans on the summer
But this was home.
This was better than sleeping on a beanbag
Sleeping on an air mattress
Sleeping on the red line for 1.5 hours at a time
The lake was just past Lake Shore Drive
And the snowpocalypse of 2010 brought stranded drivers to our front door
I was without roommates
I was without interruptions
And then one night while entertaining a guest my six legged family came in
The neighbor had bed bugs
They migrated to my studio
The date I had stayed up all night
Picking bugs from her bag and clothes
Before leaving in a rush to escape
There was no where for me to go
Tge besties sucked my blood
Three holes at a time
They feasted on my
As I scratched their bite marks
I moved eventually
And they hitchhiked to the new place
I moved across country
And that is their holocaust
If it hadn’t been for the bugs
I might still be in the city of big Shoulders,
I might still be a bachelor
No family
No date
No friends
But listening to the wind howl
And glimpsing at the lake
