Address History

The form wants every address from the last ten years. Easy enough. Umeå. Knivsta. The room above the bakery in Dublin where the pipes knocked all winter and somebody stole my milk until I wrote I SPIT IN THIS across the carton. Except Dublin never happened. I stop. Read the line again. 14 Ardee Street, Dublin 8. September 2022 — May 2023. My handwriting. Blue ink. Heavy downstroke on the 4. I know the front door stuck in rain. Kick low, shoulder hard. Lift, shove, swear. I know the third stair dipped. Know the woman downstairs cooked cabbage on Sundays, the smell crawling up through the floorboards before Mass let out. I know the bedroom. Single bed pushed lengthwise against the wall. Radiator painted over so many times the ridges had gone soft. One nail above the desk. I hung nothing from it. October: bought a green mug from the charity shop on Meath Street. December: cracked it against the sink. February: saw snow start over the Liberties, melt before it touched anything. March… No. I was in Sweden that March. Payroll records. Dentist appointment. Photographs from my sister’s birthday. A parking fine outside ICA. Proof everywhere. Still, when I close my eyes… bus brakes hiss at Christchurch. Coins knock my pocket. Rain cuts sideways across Patrick Street. Walk. Cross. Turn. There– the grocer with oranges stacked against the window, the pharmacy, the narrow gate I never learned to lock quietly. Upstairs, someone has left the lamp on. I can see it from the pavement. Yellow square. Second floor. My room. On the form, beneath Reason for Leaving, I have written: went home. I draw one line through the address. Then another. Press until the paper tears. Underneath, on the next sheet, the carbon copy keeps it.