Cave Living Poem by Angela Dodge

We are stacked on top of one another
Little cubicles of home and hearth
Absorbing the heat and aura,
The odor and essence
Of clashing existences

Listening through thin walls
To the sounds of tv
And showers
Windows grating on frames to let in
A whiff of fresh air
I hear through the floors the clattering of chairs,
The slow or fast cacophony of feet on stairs

I do not believe people were meant to be
Stacked like cordwood outside a country shack
In apartment dwellings

But we pay the rent
Trudge the stairs
Ignore the noise
Pretend that the cubicle
Is the whole world

To me, it is.