Photo by Zoe
|
Killing Time
Kristy Nielsen Waiting to get to the pause where a smile is needed, waiting to cook the next meal, which leads to a pot plus dishes, etc., perhaps an interlude of laundry. Cleaned and folded, cooked and fed. My unremitting spending of minutes, air- conditioned hours peeled away in layers leaving dust to vacuum and mop and magic away. The garbage picked up twice a week, accumulated tissues and scraps and all the plastic packaging: the bags and lids and covers and rings around the lids and covers beneath the covers, I can’t– I move the bookcase to cover a memory stain and turn the books around, I burn the journals, stab the photos, urge my blurry body to arrange some things from big to small or dead to live or . . . anything. Loose-limbed and slouched as the drunk who survives the crash, passive immolation by our lady of depression on the couch. |