Homesick for unopened boxes packed in a rush

before the next storm would surely come

Covering roads leading out, preferably, permanently south

It’s been cold here too long

Like their hair in old pictures 

I didn’t mind the recurring memory of him 

pushing her head through the wall until hearing confirmation 

that it hadn’t been imagined

I don’t mind it 

Still

She keeps asking what’s the trouble while I stare blankly at the rug searching for the words to explain how it feels to lose something you’re just beginning to find

Which is enlightenment and the impermanence of everything you never got 

Which is everything you never needed

Which is enlightenment

Why do we bother in the first place?

I sat in existential silence

Poking at the intentional holes in my shirt

Polished grommets indicating these circular gaps are there on purpose, the ribbons woven, tied and seal it

There are no ribbons filling the empty places along human timelines

Shore

They are naked, rough, unfixable, shut

Like the unopened boxes, 

Unlived life molding in some wet basement of frustrated possibilities

Of want to, yet to be

Infested with potato bugs 

and the dust of inefficacy 

Not for want of things

the retrieval of time or the burden of memories that cannot be changed

But the presence of peace and good distilled in a charming recipe 

A cropped image that cuts out sea debris 

So all that remains are shells of preferences for patience, prudence and alternative perspectives 

stuffed with love

~

In honor of Quahog Week. Glad for the organic prompt since all this stuff was stuck in there. Since finding out about my husband’s kidney disease (treatable but chronic-we’re fighting back with kale, prayer and meditation) been feeling a mix of tearful gratitude and wonder what. I feel like crying and not feeling. I feel like staying home and traveling. I feel like joining a construction crew and making every Infinite repair along the cosmic punchline to permanently heal the world and restore every wholeness. I told my friend on Monday I feel like delivering a flying round house kick hard and mean, square into the heads of Ignorance and Want. I also feel like adopting a puppy and giving everyone a hug. All those feelings but mostly I’m my same chill self carrying on with living in spite of life, just like you. Also, stuffies aka quahogs stuffed with breadcrumbs and butter, are a revelation. xo