I live in the house of habit,
rarely venturing out the front door
or the back door,
I stare out the windows and dream.
I keep myself from going too far.
I live in the house of habit
I can’t resist dreaming but I worry
ravishing dreams will be the end of me.
This dreaming beckons to me
without any sense of measure
I live in the house of habit
which I have built slowly over
all my years, even surreptitiously.
Experience comes out of peril, but
habit softly muffles everything.
I live in the house of habit
and can’t tell you how to find me,
because I no longer know my address
where I am alone without myself,
luxury approaching death itself
I live in the house of habit,
a place I never intended to be
that just grew up around me,
with a desk of polished bone
I compose a memoir of nonentity
I live in the house of habit