Poem a Day 2015: 3

Tea Bag Proverb

To be calm is the highest achievement

of the self.

Tell that to the young woman I was

27 years ago -- the one whose blood

frothed under the whip of maybes and whatifs,

the one whose brain cycled faster than

a hummingbird’s wing as it recreated

the past, single moments bounced infinitely

back and forth against the mind’s twin

mirrors. That woman created an aura of

emotional disorder in her wake, trembling

hands and shaking heads,

frowns and shutups and fortheloveofgods.

That woman found another woman’s hands

wrapped around her neck.

Even in sleep, that woman tumbled

haphazard through tidal waves,

found herself trapped in the funhouse

of a thousand alternate futures,

and ran from blankfaced gunmen,

only to open the door to

a bullet in the face.

It would be a mercy

to forget that woman

in an unmarked grave,

to let her, finally, rest.

But she visits me, still,

in dreams, talking soundlessly and

wringing her bloodless hands,

pacing the confines of her skull cell,

promising the end of this

tenuous peace,

promising bankruptcy,

cancer,

Alzheimer’s,

abandonment,

and the sweet oblivion

of apocalypse.