The Pink House Across the Street

From the house across the street,
you know, the pink one,
my house looks just fine.
It's white with green trim,
it has a lot of trees,
and a clothesline hangs from two of them.

From the house across the street
you can't see that the siding is rotting
and the paint is peeling away and flaking off.

You also can't really see the bare spots in the grass
where countless kids have built castles in the dirt,
pretending it was sand,
and packs of scraggly dogs have dug dozens of holes
for buried bones long forgotten.

From the house across the street,
you know, the pink one where they have a gardener,
no one can tell that our basketball goal is bent,
and the driveway is made of dust and gravel
instead of concrete.

There's always lots of noise coming from our house.
Our dogs bark at squirrels all night,
children yell and cry and fight and laugh,
and the cars and trucks never really stop.
Some people complain about the noise.

From the house across the street,
you know, the one where the people we don't know live,
our house actually looks quite nice.
The lights are always on
and the front door is normally unlocked.

The roof on our house is warped
and it leaks when it rains.
But only in the kitchen.