I have been trying not to hunch,
not to wake so late, not to give in
to graceless urges
like going to bed without brushing.
Brushing itself doesn't feel so tiresome
I scrub hard near my molars so the
twisted wisdom tooth doesn't dare
infection. When I floss, I go dutifully
in a row, note which teeth produce
most scum from their shoulders.
I want something from myself.
I have been trying to divine
what the nameless need might be,
what the interminable want.
Where am I? What needs are mine?
Somebody has put me in charge
of a largish crude me-child
and I am tired of reading, of googling,
of trying to decipher what ways
this me-child should go.
I understand, reader, that this is not
the right way to think. I am trying to mend.
Daily life rises like an unexpected wave each morning,
washing over me before I can steady
my feet in the shifting sand.
All the time I am searching. What for I cannot be sure.
Every day I try and try, and in moments
I do manage to pull the thin blanket
of ease over me,
find joy like a place in the air,
feel my body becoming somehow significant
in a universe briefly made sacred. I am here,
I am standing, my muscles buttered into my skin.
I trust, and that trust forms around me, goldlike.
I am here, I am here to make, I live, I am able
to love and be loved, what a blessing.
What I need to do (how I cannot help but try)
is thrash less in swimmable water,
find rhythm, let my spine be one
with water.