when you died, i swallowed a part of your spirit that no one with a mother needs. i want to feed and clothe more than. i want to guide and love and chisel maps into stone, break the glass in case of emergency, trying to hold on to the same axe as someone else’s. it’s not a competition but a repetition no one needs. It’s a useless talent that can’t go anywhere without a process of adoption. i ask if they are cold and it is an empty gaze back. when you give, you expect to release that gift. i am standing at a child’s party holding a romper that won’t fit, fit for my returning. “send a gift certificate, it’s okay.”
i have absorbed part, i— not needed. a cat looking out a window at a nesting bird with a full bowl of food on the cold tile kitchen floor, infinitely refilling. i can’t create one but i can create one in me, maybe in a decade or so. it seems. is there time for my own? what i won’t say is that my life is not one built for longevity. statistically, based on parental mortality i won’t see 60. when most of us finally take the time to sit and look out the window. i am looking at the window now and i see closed blinds, a shadow of a tree against clouds. i see books scattered on my floor. i am in a chair, but i should be on the floor. gift of sight, no one cares to see. come back and take this away from me. i look out a window you will never pass by, or stand in, or be in again.
there’s only room for one. there is no one else here.