(you should have changed the locks and installed a burglar alarm)
(you should have left him in jail where he wasn’t a danger to himself or others)
you cross the burnt lawn in silence
two weeks
feel like ten years
Norway was a dream
a fantasy
you stop living out of your suitcase
unpack clothes into a beige dresser
place a framed picture of you with your norsk familie
on the beige windowsill next to the troll key chain
add your silver spoon in its nest of blue velvet
Viking rose
you write Espen often, but haven’t called
too expensive
two mortgages on a house that no longer exists
massive, mounting medical bills
a fight with the insurance company
you’re a hostage
in your parents’ financial dungeon
one night after dinner
you say to your father
you know you don’t have to pay his medical bills, right?
he’s over eighteen
this was entirely his fault
you don’t have to keep taking responsibility
your father frowns
his disease is not his fault
these bills would bury him
ruin his entire future