I sit alone on the sofa in my living room hear the clock tick tick tick the refrigerator humm mmm mmm the furnace switch on and off on and off children playing somewhere outside I am not reading or writing or looking at email or watching TV or talking on the phone or flipping through a magazine or eating a snack or drinking tea just sitting here alone in the sofa in my living room hearing the clock tick tick tick
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I have trouble conceiving people’s otherness that they have lives outside of what I see do the walls of my mother’s library her books exist even if I’m miles away my father’s garden his big dining room table is it really there right now even if I’m not this is an updated version of my teacher not possibly persisting outside of the class not related to my ego being so big that it cannot imagine things beyond my own existence but rather a crack in my ability to perceive
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Loose sentences no punctuation solid thought dust does not constitute poetry a poet has a serious job reports on the blue cup she uses at breakfast the old copper coin she finds in the grass the flower that grows right through the pavement the silver spoon with the delicate white handle the bruised pear in the fruit bowl the key once essential that no longer opens anything how a stranger looks from behind and from a distance this is just debris
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I've decided to pretend I have a bungee cord tied to my waist. This makes the prospect of long, scary falls sound thrilling instead of terrifying. (Economy going down the drain? I could lose my job? Weeeee!) It also reminds me of the ability we all have hidden within to bounce right back up after a calamity.
