POEM A DAY – February 23

Confessional Oscillation

I felt jealous three times in two days.
I swore at my laptop.
I didn’t recycle a take-out container.
I cursed winter.
I gave a dirty look to a woman
who wouldn’t stop talking during a funeral eulogy.
I didn’t put the spoon in the dishwasher.
The woman in the drive-through was rude
and it pissed me off.

Meeting myself in these poems is difficult.
Where is my grace in loving the parts of me
that rage? That give up? That blame and battle?
I’m learning that when my will was a seedling
I buried her and forgot where. That, sometimes,
the only way to excavate is with an angry shovel.
I’m not a gardener, but I am an explorer. I am
curious about the wolf in me, hungry for a shame
sandwich. Ha! Shame sandwich. The part of me
that’s always hungry is here! Hello!

There’s sacred space between wish and want,
between action and exhaustion, between big
and small – these places in which I oscillate.
I miss petting horses and heaving their shit,
the way hay makes me sneeze. I long for
a peace I know I’ll only feel again when
death becomes me…for the view from the
blackness, where everything and everyone
sparkles.