Eviction Notice

Jasmine Owens

The phone from across the hall started to ring

I let it go

Watching the wire ripple and cease, ripple and cease

And that’s when it leapt from its holster and jumped atop me

I sunk a little further into the cushions of the old armchair and

It took its cord and wrapped itself around my neck and continued to scream

I watched it with eyes of an unknown body and eventually it ceased

With its head drooping, it slunk back across to where it came from

Rippling and ceasing, rippling and ceasing

There was a drunk man at the door this morning: he pounded it with his fists

I let it go

Watching the frame ripple and cease, ripple and cease

His mouthy words trickled into sobriety around half past noon

He spoke to me in a tone that was mockingly familiar

“I regret to inform you, but the man is kicking you out tonight”

I imagined the state of this stranger, I imagined the stained wife beater over his hairy shoulders

He must have told me about his name in a dream but that was nights before

I cleared my head in the sink, but the water wasn’t steady; it only rippled and ceased, rippled and ceased

A letter carrier shoved envelope after envelope into the crack under my front door the following day

The letters piled up until the door shifted from its hinges and fell flat

From my place on the couch, I shot him a wary glance and he returned a hapless shrug

I reckoned it was about time for me to move out

Because how can you stay in any place without a door?

How can you stay with a telephone that ripples but never quite ceases?

So let it go and turned myself in

I think someone may have waved on my way out

But that could have also been a passing car