it’s been marinating in my stomach –
roiling and churning –
long past the expiration date,
and i can’t keep my teeth as cage bars
any longer (lest they rot)
so take this as it is,
not as an anonymous complaint or
a lawsuit to rob you,
but as a cut i had to let breathe
(bandaids are but
temporary,
no?)
when i picture my life five years
from now,
i somehow feel like i’ve seen
this movie before,
and i can’t say the plotline was all
too interesting the
first time (no
offense)
what i mean is –
we only get this one shot,
and maybe it’s
vain,
or maybe i have a complex,
but whoever decided that life
was a checklist? (college,
career, husband …)
and when I feel the void
staring back at me,
i don’t think about those things that
i’m supposed to want,
and live for – I see
faces
and places i haven’t yet seen (god,
there’re so many)
so i’m sorry, Grandma –
i know this isn’t polite dinner
conversation,
but before my worries surface and
rejoin the untouched peas
on my plate,
i have to describe just exactly how
it makes me feel
to look a vastly unexplored solar system
in the face,
and to answer your question
with “Harvard” (you’ve
assumed i’ll go anywhere
at all)
… and maybe your question
isn’t so polite,
either