Hostel by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

BaseCamp Tanzania

One of his kids is in Africa
He wanted to work for a nonprofit
but the nonprofits won’t hire him
because he doesn’t have a college degree
even though he knows a lot more than any
college graduate

He grew up unschooled
meaning he could learn what he wanted
or nothing at all

After seventeen years of that
he went to college
He had prepared himself well
but his judgment was faulty
like that of so many seventeen-year-olds

He went out behind his dorm
with one of his friends
and set a pile of his socks on fire
He didn’t consider it a symbolic act
No one really knows
what he considered it

He got suspended for a term
After the term was over
he decided not to go back
Maybe that was the symbolism of the act
He decided to go to Tanzania instead

He couldn’t get a job in a nonprofit
so he decided to start a youth hostel
He rented a huge house and began renting out rooms
some by the night
some by the week
some by the month

There was so much going on in that house
no one could keep track of it
even if they’d wanted to


Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over nine hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad, including BEAKFUL. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver.