at the bottom of your laundry chute

I live at the bottom of your laundry chute, waiting patiently for you to toss your draws with the gold-plated skid marks down. And I wait. Sometimes you hock loogies, sweetened with Johnny Walker Black, and sometimes you even sing me folk songs to remind me how long it takes for the echo to reach my eardrums. Did you know it was a swamp here when I was dropped down? Have you seen it lately, darling? One night, while you slept, I filed my nails with my incisors, and scaled the chute. I tip-toed past your bedroom door, (yes, I peeked. I am merely petals) and crawled my way beneath the street lights to the thrift shop nearby that you donate to but never purchase from. There, I found an old KC and the Sunshine Clan shirt. I didn’t have any money because you never remember to toss the pennies when you make a wish. So I bunched it up and hid it close to my core as if I was smuggling a child to safety. On the walk home, I discovered a trail of sunflower seeds, the ranch kind, left by some precarious t-ball player who had shuffled home unaware of the hole in his pocket. The church our mothers used to worship in had fallen and I collected the pieces of stained glass, cutting my palms as I gripped too tightly, too fearful they’d slip away. And as I wriggled once more past your snoozing flesh, I whispered to you, hoping your subconscious would dredge up a lovely image of me or two. I slid down the chute like your piles of soiled designer socks. I used my canines to tear the sunshine from the ratty fabric and hung it high. I watched the rays fill the cold, gray room. Color bouncing from bare wall to bare wall. Rainbows shooting from my agape mouth. I am magic but you never open your eyes. I made a meadow in your basement and sent embossed invitations to you every day but you never even bothered to RSVP “no.” How many flowers must bloom from my dimples; how many gardens must spring from my eyelashes before you pull me from the soil and place me in the vase on your dining room table?