201 Broad St.

The carpet hasn’t changed since I was

A little kid. A dark emerald green, 

A dirty contrast to the gold painted

Walls my dad picked to match his signs. 

I wait for the phone to ring but it never does.

No one ever calls on Black Friday, so I

Watch the minute hand tick against the wall, 

My favorite song as child, as I played 

On the floor, drawing flowers and houses. 

Everyone knew I was the kid of a real estate developer—

I liked to draw floor-plan sketches.

It's in this office that time comes to a standstill

And I sometimes feel like I can’t breathe. 

The life Dad created standing like a 

Monument in front of my eyes, the life 

I have to create for myself, a gaping black hole 

Eating at the edges of the walls. 

If you’d ask, Dad will tell you his life story, 

The son of the sharecropper who now owns all the land. 

Dropping out of night school, working retail, 

The connections he grew, those busy days 

When I wouldn’t see him until ten o’clock at night.

Sometimes, I look at the work I do at school, 

In my free time, and the amount of days I have left,

The limited hours in those days, to reach his success. 

Dad always said laziness is a cardinal sin, a rule I have 

Lived by since childhood. But now, as I stare at these 

Four office walls, the work in front me for today, 

For tomorrow, the next decade, time slipping away, 

Taking the breath in my lungs with it, 

I wonder if it will ever be enough.