in ten years

I have plenty of time left
I need not worry about returning things on time
or waking up earlier than midday
or worrying, really, about the hot tea
I spilled all over the kitchen floor, some splattering on my legs.
yes, I simply refill the mug
ignore the urge to scream in pain until it
becomes a slow beating, rhythmic ache that I can
ignore.

I have all the time in the world to argue with you (in my mind),
a slow rhythmic argument, and I wonder how it will be
in five years, in ten years
wonder if I will be the same, if I will still feel plenty
of time in my veins in my day to clean up spilled tea
to return things late
to lick my wounds.

scared of the dark

I have here
tired eyes from making lists
of things to do, swollen eyes
keeping them open when I should have
definitely, should have
been asleep, out cold.
but I toss in the heat
in my sleep, the threat of being
caught with
closed eyes is far too great
I keep them open until closing
feels like sandpaper jarring
my eyelids
but I make it through the night,
yes the throbbing, blurry vision
and the fatigue of smiling at awkward moments
it was all worth it. As you can see,
I am still one piece.

Note to Self

Another is added to the list
or broken pens and misundertood poetry.

But please do not worry about me.
These things I rarely take to heart.
I need not tell you
that I am, as ever, unfeeling:
an army sergeant, a war veteran,
a sister of married siblings. All these things
I know, make me less feeling.
Less vulnerable.

I said to you,
I said this would happen, that I could live without,
sole
with my cookie heart,
that I would allow the disparate crumbs of me
to be eaten by seagulls.

I am frustrated that I have to repeat
this to you again. I wish you would’ve understood
the first time.

Homesick

I stand on the beach with sand between my toes, furrowing, finding seashells with my feet, only to discover they are pieces of broken glass, bottlecaps, stones. I am told that this should be relaxing, that I should be taking in the ebb and flow of the water, breathing in the salt air. But I cannot. I watch unfed men selling trinkets by the shore, spiny young men swimming into it and families sitting on its edges, leaving behind footprints, garbage. My sister explains this to me, says when in Rome. But I am, as ever, captivated by the ocean; the deep, waveless depths. I stand here and I wonder how far in I can go in without a shark catching my scent.

I return to the reality of broken down taxis and men with unkempt mustaches, eyeing that extra pound in my hand. The mistrust of my own tongue being caught, unprepared by shop keepers. Twisted mouths and shapes of my mind struggling with words. Back to the whirring fans and wooden furniture in my apartment, the gold lining of everything here. I am counting the days until I am abandoned by it all. I imagine the stench of another place where there are no complex relationships with deep things like this ocean, like the suffering of ordinary people, and like eight pounds in wages per day not being enough to keep you alive.

A Perfect Intermission

I have here in my veins an intermission of sorts,
a lowering of curtains,
a break for refreshments.

My sister goes to the seamstress
to sew her clothes; skirts, blouses, a red dress.
Yet I struggle, an actor I,
to sew together the pieces of my mind.
To find the perfect sequence of
images, to speak without a slight tremble
in my throat.

And I struggle with my acting,
with the dissected bits of me-
some of which are lost or
have run away to find a better
seamstress than I.

The better one, she weaves her needle through
tough black cloth. A blazer in the making.
I wonder that her strings
can hold together a heavy material such as this,
a heavy heart such as this.