showing up

my eyes are weighted with bricks

tied to each lid with fishing wire

in fumbled, looping knots

and my back aches

like an old farm machine

gears grinding as copper rust

grits into the air and falls

slowly into these sheets

and my mind

don’t you know my mind is 

all haze and squish

a jellyfish carcass washed up

on this pillow

but this is me pushing tendered

soles against the 

floor even as it shifts

beneath the weight of too many

questions and all this time

spent wondering what will

become of you and me

and this country sizzling

in the summer heat of

too much death and

too much bread and circus

without bread

this is me standing to meet

a day that has never been

an invitation to become

what the fire will make of us

because I will not die

wishing I showed up

---

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