sometimes when i wake up
i am still wrapped in your soft blue sheets
i am still laying next to
that shuttered window
that lets that perfect light in
and for a minute i lay there waiting
for you to come back into the room
but where did you go?
where did you go?
where
did
you
go?
i just want to go up and say
i know something about you
all dramatic and dark and
grab her in a back alley
and shove her up against a wall
and i just imagine myself
in a different body
as a different person
i imagine myself powerful
because i want to be someone else
i want to be the kind of girl
who would drag a woman into an alley
and slam her up against a wall
i want to tell her that i know what she did
and i want to remind her, just in case she forgot
(just in case for a moment
her inner monologue lapsed)
she is disgusting
and i am better than her
i think about this
all
the
time
Today someone asked
how long we have been friends
and I tilted my head
my thinking pose
was it in fourth grade that we met?
was it in fifth that we became friends?
was it in sixth that we became best friends?
and then I was struggling to remember
what the hell was the name of
my sixth grade homeroom teacher?
and I realized that
the reason i couldn’t remember
was because that was twenty years ago
so we have been friends for over twenty years now
and you may argue that we were not friends
for twenty years, because there
were some years in there that we did not see each other
but when I try to remember why it was
that we had some distance
did we fight? did we have a falling out?
i just can’t remember
which must mean it doesn’t matter anyway
because we have been friends for twenty years
we can actually measure things by whole decades now
we are all old, and mothers, and mothers
what the hell.
we are mothers.
depression is
staring at a blank screen
for hours
and asking myself why
i keep bothering to put
my butt in this chair.
what’s the point?
i will be pushing up daisies
unpublished.
This is for Trifextra Week Sixty-One, to write a story in 33 words using an idiom. This may or may not be a true story.
Today three older ladies came into the bookstore
and after a while one of them sat down
at the piano and began playing some songs.
All of them were upbeat and cheerful
and her voice strained over the blaring of the keys
she pounded with joy I couldn’t imagine.
I can’t imagine sitting down in front of strangers
putting my hands to keys and playing music
that anyone would want to hear.
I will never be a piano player, I know
I will never know the feel of ivory under my skin
and it’s like I wish I’d want to.
You let go of some dreams when you get older,
you know? You forget about being an astronaut or a doctor
and you resign yourself to being yourself.
I can sit quietly in the corner of the room
while my daughter dances around the loud piano
imagining herself playing the music, imagining herself.
And I will listen and keep wondering what I can do
that gives me the feeling of performing and being
appreciated for beauty and bravery.
Writing words and slinging them into the web, that’s okay
for now, if that’s all i can do
ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Life goes on brah.
