Feels Like

Another cold front sweeps in over the Northeast. The meteorologist hyperventilates into a fit about the coldest May in memory, like we didn't already know the world is ending. I am going to make it through this year if it kills me. I pull myself to the river like a marionette, one flailing limb in front of the other. I force myself into clothes, into contact lenses and socially appropriate conversations across plastic barriers. The act of going through something normal helps, at least for the moment. At least before the silence that follows becomes a deep hole under my feet.

I am going to make it through this year, if it kills me.

At the restaurant across the street, a man drunk at 7:30 in the morning relieves himself in the nook. Teeters around, looking at the stream he created. Seems to wonder if he should follow it, before he wobbles out of view. The morning is sunny. Poetry lies in piles around me. I am all hoarding these words for a time of need and completely ignoring that the time of need is here. You can't save your canned beans for a Depression if you won't eat them when it comes. You are in the Dust Bowl now, what are you doing pretending these bricks of paper are best saved for after the rains return?

What good is hiding all this ink for another year,
if this one kills you?