Nothing Moves

Nothing moves until we reach a threshold and we are not there yet. 
The bathroom is atrocious, poison ivy on my forearms, 
my brain shut down days ago. 
If it's permanent I will still have to laugh; I will still try.

She's exhausted the DVDs at the library.
Terror creeps in and wells up,
slouched in a chair at the office.
"I can stop fumbling these papers if you want to talk.
Is it the action films? The war mongering that turns you off?" 

"No.  Romantic Comedy." 
The man and woman play too close to home, but not in their similarities. 

She remembers the tomatoes in jars in her kitchen, with
her pots and her pans and her cooking utensils.
She regrets giving him a chance to be better.
She was wrong, she regrets.

This week, some judge will weigh in on the future of the loveliest:  baby boy, yellow bird. 
I'm not sure we'll recover if he says the wrong things. If he favors separation
of her lifeline, her blood. 
What role is his and why? 

Unloading a list of all of the people saying and doing the least helpful things,
"You should cut his hair he'll be more presentable, you know, I'm paying for all of this."
But she won't cut his hair.  She won't back down.
She won't conspire to erase more history.

The history of her people,
my people I've never met.  Trifled by
photographs next to Disney World statues of your pretend ancestors
do you even know what you are saying to me?


It was she who wanted children least of all.
Not into this poisoned world.  Not into this poisoned city.
The water, the air, homeowner, trapped. 
But it's different now.

"He will have beautiful braids," she says. Training his part down the middle.

I listen through my migraine, slowwww, concentrated,
trying not to vomit.
I want her to know that I am there. 
I want her to know that I am there even though I am afraid.

I am afraid we weren't made for this kind of courage.  For this world
disconnected, content in its unwell.
We get bigger and smaller, and smaller and bigger
eluding emotions flowing emotions
trying to relax. 
We don't know how to relax.

We shouldn't call this the living room because we don't live in here. 
We should call this bebop from one problem to the next. 
We should call this trying to stand.