Housing Shortage

I tried to live small.

I took a narrow bed.

I held my elbows to my sides.

I tried to step carefully

And to think softly

And to breathe shallowly

In my portion of air

And to disturb no one.

Yet see how I spread out and I cannot help it.

I take to myself more and more, and I take nothing

That I do not need, but my needs grow like weeds,

All over and invading; I clutter this place

With all the apparatus of living.

You stumble over it daily.

And then my lungs take their fill.

And then you gasp for air.

Excuse me for living,

But, since I am living,

Given inches, I take yards,

Taking yards, dream of miles,

And a landscape, unbounded

And vast in abandon.

You too dreaming of the same.