A Long Road Home

Stick in the mud.  Stick along the fence.
I once gave a birthday present that was an exhibition.
It was at a church on 37th.
There are these tree branches.
They are all detached, and scraggly, and trapped in the panes of a fence.
I can't tell which was there first, or now, if they need each other.

It's St. Patty's day, Hip Hip Hooray.
I walk alone, around the warehouse, with my stick. wwwhhh.
I was never good at sound effects.  I was never good at facial expressions.  I thought I was good at a lot of things until you.
You proved hundreds of unforeseen variables.

My heart is broken.
I didn't know until my jaw started hurting sometimes, and then all the time, and then a lot.
I've never had such a strong body reaction to an emotional problem, but I've talked enough abuse and trauma and chronic pain to get it.
Sometimes when your heart is broken, your jaw starts to hurt.

The doctor thinks maybe it's bell's palsy.
She gave me some handouts on TMJ and told me to come back if I wanted some work done.
I didn't go back.
I started inventing poetry on the spot.  Toni Braxton was playing in the waiting room.  I have a lot of friends, and eventually it will all come out.

We love each other.
I only say it when you say something so perfect that I can't hold it in.  And you only say it after you get out of the car, just before you close the door.  But when I joked the world would be a better place with more yous in it,  I wasn't joking.

I don't know how this story ends.  I'm not a librarian.
I alone will not decide.  I'm not the writer.
I'm just a mirror, a minnion.  A sponge, a kitchen dweller, a super effective stander, a body inhabiting a life, feeling the tension between the two.
Basically a lady walking around with a cup,
looking for a drink of water.