My childhood home was an old, pale blue shack
with a tiny yard and a useless, rusty fence.
My stepdad had an annoying ADT alarm installed
that would squawk, “door open”
every time someone came or left.

The house phone would blare through every room
whilst a basketball game played over the stone fireplace,
and I’d be playing jail with my dolls
in the cabinet with the wooden bars.

We slept on air mattresses
and watched the fireworks every summer from the back deck,
where you could see without obstruction
the Cincinnati skyline.

It was the kind of neighborhood
that wasn’t quite ghetto,
nor exceptionally desirable in its own right.

We were smashed up against other old houses
with other families
with their own weird little quirks.

Next door seemed to have
a never-ending supply of different kids
running in and out their front door —
torn screen and falling off of its hinges.

The neighbors across the street
one night got into a fight with a firearm.
My siblings and I hid in our parents’ room
and turned all of the lights off,
waiting in earnest
for the cops to smooth it over, again.

It was fun when you imagined yourself as a spy,
capable of blending seamlessly into the background
like a chameleon.

My older siblings were always more concerned than I was.

The nearby train would occasionally shake the bed
throughout the day in my brother’s room,
and he convinced me
that there was a vengeful ghost trapped inside
causing the turbulence.

The shaking dissipated when we moved away,
so I assumed the ghost preferred the old place
more than we did.

Down the way,
there’s an old ice cream shop
where we would grab cones on a hot day
and swing our legs on the benches
outside the front windows,
admiring the sugary displays
and counting passing cars by their colors.

I don’t well remember the day we moved out,
but it felt eerily silent and still in our new house
when I walked in.

Homeowners associations suck, by the way.