thirty-three years go by   and not once do you come home   to find a man sitting in your bedroom   that is   a man you don't know   who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:   lock your back door, you idiot   however invincible you imagine yourself to be   you are wrong      thirty-three years go by   and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares   your breasts hang like a woman's   and you don't jump at shadows anymore   instead you may simply pause to admire   those that move with the grace of trees   dancing past streetlights   and you walk through your house without turning on lamps   sure of the angle from door to table   from table to staircase   sure of the number of steps   seven to the landing   two to turn right   then seven more   sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory   across your bedroom   and collapse with a sigh onto your bed   shoes falling   thunk thunk   onto the floor   and there will be no strange man   suddenly all that time sitting there   sitting there on what must be the prize chair   in your collection of uncomfortable chairs   with a wild look in his eyes   and hands that you cannot see   holding what?   you do not know      so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation   that you are painfully slow to adjust   if only because   yours is not that genre of story   still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies   no bullets shattering glass   instead fear sits patiently   fear almost smiles when you finally see him   though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years   and now he has let himself in   and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares   though you think you see, in your naivete   that he is empty handed   and this brings you great relief   at the time      new as you are, really, to the idea that   even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters   they can all change   while you're out one night having a drink with a friend   some big hand may be turning a big dial   switching channels on your dreams   until you find yourself lost in them   and watching your daily life with the sound off   and of course having cautiously turned down the flame under your eyes   there are more shadows around everything   your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse   your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead   presiding over your supposed repose   not really sleep at all   just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds   a clanking pipe   a creaking branch   the footfalls of a cat   all of this and maybe   the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat   as you walk him step by step back to the door   having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea   soft leather, big feet, almond eyes   the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later   with his clipboard   and his pistol   in your hallway