magic eraser

you are sleeping upstairs
with your spinning star light
lullabies playing on a never ending loop
your head thrown back and your mouth wide open
or curled up with your legs tucked up underneath you
and I am wiping down the walls.

how did that dirty handprint get up there?
it looks smudgy and impossibly high
houses are strangers and then soul-mates
you just wake up and it's November and it's home.

I have loved houses for many reasons:
the way the light comes into the kitchen,
bay windows,
breakfast nooks,
a butcher block island,
the whirring of an overhead fan,
a weeping willow in the yard.
I love this house for two specific reasons.

I have never once cleaned these baseboards
but I am scrubbing and you are dreaming
and I am going 
we are going
life is change
you can go.
(even if the rates are high, especially if the rates are high?
actually, please don't ever worry about rates
I didn't carry and labor and deliver and pour love and sweat and tears into you for you to worry about interest rates
I am realizing in writing this how much I wish for you to never, ever worry about interest rates)

when the fit isn't what it was
your toes are pinching
the season is changing
if you need space, different air, a bigger circle, more you.
you can go

I cry as I scrub away the pencil marks,
in your dad's handwriting,
tracking how tall you've grown.
remembering a golden hour that will always be 
and never be again.
all the hope and all the reality
weeping and going
life is change and it's beautiful
you are never stuck
grab a magic eraser and quietly say thank you as you walk the empty space you filled for a time and go.