In this house with the grapes on the table and the grains on the floor, it’s no wonder that this infamous mouse of ours, so raucously named Mortimer has found himself to wander back and forth.  I set up shop here tonight with these weary eyes and all of my excuses and I wait for you Mortimer.

Perhaps it’s my too anxious steps, or the things that I talk to myself about.  Perhaps it is these things that I discuss that make you, Mortimer, all too anxious yourself.

Or my sweeping and mopping: the constant repetition of the faucet and the dishwasher.  Do you know that I have nothing left to give you from my bowl, for even the crumbs that make it to the floor, are all too accurately collected after dinner?

It is this mouse in this house, the one that only Meghan can see that calls me back to StinkWallet.

It is not the impending shadow of school that lurks around the corner or the constant nagging of my brain.  It is not the battle with consumption that I have found myself with this summer: the Visa in my pocket whose tummy grumblings have kept me sating it.  It is the mouse in this house, the one that only Meghan can see, the one that used to live in the walls, through the holes inside the radiators.  This is the thing that calls me back.

So Mortimer lurks as I write these words.   He thinks that while he hears the typing in the other room he is free and willing to wander the kitchen and the living room.  He knows that my eyes are not as quick as the youngsters in the building who are forever keeping their ears to the ceiling waiting for the next excuse to grumble about my trampling.  He should know that I care not for the mouse in the house, the one that only Meghan can see, or if he wanders the halls or the piles of clothing, or if he takes up residence in my stinky old shoes, as long as he vacates with just enough time for me to place them on my feet.

I find no problems in these things, but rather my independence.  My resolve to reset and enforce my gut is so strong that I should merely stand my ground and heal as quickly as I set forth upon these things.  The softness of my arms is turning softer and sinew takes up the places where true muscle once wrapped around bone.

We are certainly not entitled to become weaker versions of ourselves.

Certainly not, but all too often rehearsed and acted upon.

Dear little Mortimer mouse, the mouse of the house, the mouse that only Meghan can see.

Dear little Mortimer mouse who finds himself invisible to my eyes: teach me once and for all how to look for the grapes and the grains. Teach me how to take them selfishly away from all those who I might just as easily share sustenance with.