THE FUTURE POET LAUREATE WRITES IN HER JOURNAL

I’ve been so swamped, I took a mental health day, called in sick. My poems are dwindling like unused extra fingers. But the signs weren’t good: first the car that wouldn’t start, then no heat in the apartment. And in between the therapist saying you have to learn to let go. Hell, I barely made it to the appointment. How can I relax when my mechanic charges twice as much as my therapist? I ask the radiator repairman, can’t you fix it so it doesn’t knock? I need things to be simpler than they are.

Today my car still isn’t running & I work eleven hours, 9:00 to 8:00. After work I’ll rent an old movie & fall asleep on the couch, the tattered cushions will take me as I am, will let me down gently into their kingdom of spare parts. I’ll weight my pockets with ballast of coins & combs, let the missing socks stay missing, pay no mind to the pens all sticky with ink.