This poem is published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.

I wake up with you not beside me

I wake up with you not beside me
but in me in different parts of me

elbows knee neck the middle rib
on my right side you have the run

of the place I can’t stop you
can’t predict from one morning

to this morning where you will be
or how long you will stay like

an unwelcome guest with its own
set of keys and doors too that open

into every part of me this thing
which is supposed to be my home

the one place where I can rest and be
alone at peace sometimes I swear

I feel like the place is yours and
I am just the ghost that haunts

this house all the time a ghost
without form or substance that feels

too much and only one terrible thing
which is you which is I won’t

name you if I do I am afraid
I am afraid you will never leave

Nathaniel Lachenmeyer is an award-winning disabled author of books for children and adults. His first book, The Outsider, which takes as its subject his late father’s struggles with schizophrenia and homelessness, was published by Broadway Books. His most recent book, an all-ages graphic novel called The Singing Rock & Other Brand-New Fairy Tales, was published by First Second/Macmillan. Nathaniel has forthcoming/recently published poems, stories and essays with X-R A-Y, Iron Horse, North Dakota Quarterly, Citron Review, Reed Magazine, Potomac Review, Epiphany, Permafrost, Berkeley Poetry Review, About Place Journal, and DIAGRAM. Nathaniel lives outside Atlanta with his family. www.NathanielLachenmeyer.com.

Featured image in this post is, “Fröndenberg 20170604 12” by Enyavar, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.