It’s dark and getting darker. 

I’m tumbling through one self-soothing 

measure after another. 

The body requires more than I have 

energy for – the maintenance is ridiculous 

with the hair and teeth and cooking

and running through old events like

they just happened and imagining 

things that will never be. 

.

The days see numbers and cheese,

sun and soap, withering and humming. 

I don’t quite know the song,

but I think it’s three different tunes 

I seem to interchange, like fall leaves 

when they’re all brown and crackly – 

it doesn’t matter 

if they were oak or elm or maple;

they’re on their way to dust. 

People are swirling about today

and it’s a noisy busy morning.

I take one task, then two,

then daydream soundly while 

maneuvering my hands 

as though anything I do 

is worthwhile. 

.

I leave one room 

and enter another 

with words of varying degrees

of idle chatter and observation 

hanging in the air 

awaiting my response 

which I give a little emptily.

.

I am numbly nervous,

a state of being- like a pink flower

quivering beneath the bee,

filling in my edges with sadness and fear.

I’ve made it longer than expected

and I wonder how far I can go 

following the lines on the road,

not really knowing where I’m going. 

.

Someday I will talk to trees again;

they will love me 

and I won’t worry.