Mouse in a mustard vest, munching millet

Mortgage-free, mid-squat, sipping spelt from a skillet

My shag rug’s shedding, smells like sage

Ceiling’s crawling with centipedes swarming in rage

I scroll Zillow while sipping zinc tea

Zebra’s flipping duplexes in Zone C

My debit card’s damp, dipped in dew

Declined by a duck in a denim shoe

Raccoons run real estate rituals

Renting yurts with yarrow initials

I tried to buy a barn in Boone

But the paperwork’s pulled like a song on Zune.

That mouse ain’t got no mortgage

He’s munching millet in a moss-lined storage

Millennials melting in rent-sick schemes

While ferrets flip flats in foreclosed dreams

That mouse ain’t got no mortgage

He’s squatting in my serotonin storage

I pay rent to a crow in corduroy

Who invoices me in interspecies joy

Met my ex in a feral fog

She wore faux fur and smelled like smog

We kissed in a kitchen full of canned beans

Then did it on a futon made of jeans

She said she’s pregnant. My timing sucks

She’s due in spring, or when the moon wakes up

I woke up sweating in a plastic nest

With cursed dolls clawing at my chest

I rode a snail through suburbia’s spleen

Each cul-de-sac coated in kerosene

The owl said “owning’s obsolete”

Then sold me sage in a spreadsheet suite

You should really buy now,

You don’t want to be poor forever do you?

(You know mortgage means, death pledge right?)

That mouse ain’t got no mortgage

He’s munching millet in a moss-lined storage

Millennials melting in rent-sick schemes

While ferrets flip flats in foreclosed dreams

That mouse ain’t got no mortgage

He’s squatting in my serotonin storage

I pay rent to a crow in corduroy

Who invoices me in interspecies joy

I woke up wrapped in eviction thread

Mouse on my chest, crow by my head

The registrar read my rental sins

Then fed my lease to feral winds

My ex said, “We need a place to land.”

But the landlord chuckled with the lease in hand

The futon folded. The walls went mute.

I clocked in late in a borrowed suit.

My boss said, “Smile.” I said, “I’ll try.”

Then filed reports with a ferret’s eye.

(That Mouse Ain’t Got No Mortgage!)