The Mess is Gone (poem)

After the sliding door of the mini van closed
I remember feeling my heart twist.
My eyes followed the car until it was no longer.
An empty room now, was all I had
with white walls, bare, waiting to be smothered

using posters to cover an emptiness; meaninglessness
never meant so much. 
Bands, supposed heroes…stuck
to shield me from the pale blocks which I laid up against,
curled.  Having clutched my phone—my last connection

to what filled me.  Parents replaced by teachers
in crescent shaped cathedrals of knowing
and I had related. 
A brother swapped for friends
whose stamina ran on alcohol.  Boys who made sure
that a weekend elevator ride back to a poster-covered room
was vomit-soaked and I was left to question

if this was better.  Each weekend spent in a desk chair
rotating from xbox to computer to phone
all the while thinking of that mini van’s door closing
and picturing the concrete driveway where it would stop,
the door torn by the scratches of frenzied dogs waiting
impatiently for it to be thrown open, the stairs
leading to a room made warm by pictures, and books,
and memories of fist fights and arguments over toys
that still rest in the closet.  A room that was finally
clean to a mother’s liking.

And while my new friends howled songs drunkenly
I wondered if someone was in that old warm room,
wishing it was a mess again.