19

I have lived in 19 houses.

Left each one of them with bin bags.

Every one holds an era, peers into my face like a concerned teacher on days when my feet are itchy. 

For instance- Number 6 is Grandma’s cooking, mince, potatoes, Emmerdale, kids from school imitating my accent, learning to change it like shoes.

Number 8 is 90’s green walls, sick with themselves, weed smoke and coffee, tuna butties and feeling proud because Mum’s boyfriend has a car. My first nickname, Fat Pippa. 

Number 13 is endless rules, smoking and cider, being a practise test and leaving when the exam is due in nine months, from then it’s postcards and polite smiles at family functions. 

Number 5 was the worst, still plays in my mind like a line from a song I heard on the radio on days when I hear people fucking, fighting or both. This house is a massive farm, a new school my mother wearing bruises to the dinner table like her Sunday best. A bell ringing in the yard long after the phone has been ripped out the wall. 

Number 15 is generic bedroom furniture, locks on the kitchen and wearing a school uniform for a week after leaving the last place with only photographs and underwear. It is a girl who pulls out clumps of hair when her family don’t visit. 

Number 1 is near a park, is plastic tea sets and Mum, sleeping on a pull out sofa so I can have the bedroom, is matey bubble bath, but even now when playing house, there is always a break up. 

Number 16 is where Marxism becomes the only option. Is grey walls and ecstasy at the weekend, is impressing funders and income support is the local tory councillor taking publicity shots. 

Number 10 is where it all falls apart, or maybe my silence was the only thing holding it together. It is red bricks, Spanish music and wine is fuck all in the cupboards and a bloody nose for tea.

I have learnt that my goodbye’s aren’t always necessary, sometimes they get eaten with tea on the next visit. I have learnt to count passive aggressive comments like charms no longer worn around the wrist.

I am always a lodger, know how to slide next to family’s life like a Tetris piece and pretend to fit. I have learnt the three basic rules of assimilation are make yourself quiet, make yourself useful and make yourself scarce.

I can tell you the time it takes for raised voices to become raised fists, can spot an argument looming like a rain cloud in the gate of another. I know that space is power and those who take it up with noise and furniture don’t expect you to notice.

I know what it means to have your possessions tidied away like an embarrassment. I know how to take cigarettes for silence and brush my hair before the social worker comes.

I have lived in 19 houses, each standing behind me like a cross parent. Houses are like people; some of them will push you from them like an inconvenience.

I have lived in 19 houses.

I’m still looking for a home.